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Top row: Foxes; symbol of Shinto worship; wine vase; god of good luck. 

Bottom row: God of wealth; goddess of mercy; shrine and image of Kobo Daishi; idol of Buddha. 









Christ 

THE 

Lights* the World 


Ten Lectures Delivered at Foster Street 
Church of Christ, Nashville, Tenn., 
September 5-14, 1910 

4/' 

By J. M. McCALEB 

cAuthor if 

“From Idols to God ” and “Social Life in America ” 


( _ J 


Nashville, Tenn. 
McQuiddy Printing Company 
1911 






3V 




Copyrighted, 1911 

BY 

McQuiddy Printing Company. 




t * • 




©CI.A283212 


CONTENTS 


Page. 

1. The Great Commission in the Light of History 1-19 

2. Present-Day Missions in All Lands- 20-45 

3. The Natural Religions of Japan- 46-73 

4. The Temples of Japan- 74-100 

5. The Gospel in Japan in the Last Fifty Years— 101-131 

6. Schools and School Life in Japan-132-159 

7. Mission Work of the Churches of Christ-160-187 

8. The Grace of Giving-188-211 

9. Reflex Influence of Missions on the Home 

Churches -212-236 

10. The Church and the Missionary Problem- 237-262 












PREFACE. 


These lectures are the result of a growing de¬ 
mand. Many are asking for further informa¬ 
tion on the various features of missionary work 
among the unevangelized nations. The time 
should not he far distant when there shall he 
no such thing as a heathen nation. The chief 
end of the church on earth is to impart the 
knowledge of life to a perishing world. 

Man is a creature of conquest. If his ener¬ 
gies are not turned into one channel, they will 
flow in another. The acquisition of wealth with 
some has no limit, for they would own all the 
world and make the rest of mankind their vas¬ 
sals. The spirit of conquest is also what has 
made the cruel practice of war so popular 
through the ages. This spirit, common in all 
the races, must he sanctified by the gospel and 
turned to a worthier purpose. The conquest of 
the world for Christ is a cause of sufficient mag¬ 
nitude and grandeur to engage the activities of 
the greatest minds. Instead of going forth in 
armies equipped with weapons of death, man 
must learn that his mission in the world is that 



VI. 


Preface. 


of a benefactor, and that his own happiness de¬ 
pends chiefly on imparting happiness to others. 
That saying of our Lord, “With what measure 
ye mete, it shall he measured unto you,” is as 
true of the blessings we impart as the injuries 
we inflict. Henceforth we must seek riches by 
giving them to others, and must wage war to 
make alive rather than to kill. 

It is hoped that the reader may catch the 
spirit here suggested, and by the time he has 
read the last page will rise from his seat with 
the feeling and determination that his mission 
in this world shall be to bless with the message 
of hope. J. M. McCALEB. 


Christ the Light of the World, 


THE GREAT COMMISSION IN THE LIGHT 
OF HISTORY. 


The commission is as long as time and as wide 
as the human race. Its primary purpose is the 
purity and redemption of man; hut indirectly 
it has proved the basis of union and the terms 
of friendship through which the nations have 
reached conclusions of peace and good will. 

Rapid Progress of Early Christianity. 

Let us place ourselves back at the source of 
the gospel and trace its stream down to the 
present time. The gospel began in Asia, as the 
word is now used, at the eastern end of the Med¬ 
iterranean Sea, in the land now called “Pales¬ 
tine,” and in the capital of that little country, 
the city of Jerusalem. It was about twenty 
years after Pentecost that the gospel reached Eu¬ 
rope. Paul and Barnabas had made their first 
2 




o 


Christ the Light of the World. 


missionary journey through the island of Cy¬ 
prus and into Asia Minor. The second journey 
of Paul and Silas was through Syria, Cilicia, 
Phrygia, Galatia, and “Asia,” down to Troas. 
Here Paul saw a man in a vision summoning 
him over into Europe. From the time the gos¬ 
pel first entered Europe, at Philippi, its spread 
throughout the Roman Empire—“the whole 
world” in Paul’s day—was very rapid. I read 
from “A Hundred Years of Missions,” by Leon¬ 
ard : 4 ' The attempt will not be made to follow in 
detail the spread of Christianity during the early 
centuries. Suffice it to say that before two hun¬ 
dred years had passed the name of Jesus was 
known and revered in regions as distant as Ara¬ 
bia and Abyssinia, in Armenia, Persia, Media, 
Parthia, and Bactria. Also along the whole 
southern coast of the Mediterranean, past Car¬ 
thage to the 'Pillars of Hercules’ [modern Gi¬ 
braltar]. By this time, too, missionaries had 
gathered harvests for the gospel in Spain, Gaul 
[France], and Britain. Britain and Bactria 
then constituted the western and eastern bound¬ 
ary of the church. It is not surprising, there¬ 
fore, that we find Origen, who died in 258 A.D., 
expressing the confident belief that Christian¬ 
ity, 'by its inherent power and without help of 


Christ the Light of the World. 


3 


miracle, would supplant the religions of the 
heathen. ’ ” 

Progress Checked. 

Had the Christian religion continued as it be¬ 
gan and had it made such strides throughout 
the succeeding centuries as it did the first few, 
there would be to-day no such thing as heathen 
nations. But at the close of the fourth century 
this progress was checked. Several things op¬ 
erated to check it. One was the centralization 
of power. There were five great centers—Jeru¬ 
salem; Antioch, in Syria; Alexandria, in Egypt; 
Home, in Italy; and Constantinople, in Turkey. 
These five centers exercised authority over the 
churches and began to legislate for the church 
as a whole. Another thing that was fatal to the 
missionary spirit was the forbidding of “lay 
preaching /’ as it was called. They said the 
common people did not know enough to present 
the truth; that preaching should be confined to 
the theologians, who were prepared for such 
work. This was death to the missionary spirit; 
and, beloved friends, we have not fully recov¬ 
ered from that mistake even unto this day. We 
can see traces of it now in our own churches. 
Too much dependence is placed on the pulpit. 
Everything is referred to the preacher. Ad- 


4 


Christ the Light of the World. 


justment of church troubles is deferred till the 
preacher comes around. This is a relic of the 
mistake made by our fathers in the fourth cen¬ 
tury. 

Nevertheless, with all the obstacles thrown in 
its way, the Christian religion continued to 
make some progress, and by the tenth century 
it had spread east and west from Ireland to 
China, and, from north to south, from Greenland 
to India. 

Eight Centuries of Inactivity. 

During the next five centuries the gospel was 
at a dead standstill—that is, during the period 
from the tenth to the fifteenth century. These 
Avere the darkest of the Dark Ages. But there 
were two things that happened at the close of 
the fifteenth century and the beginning of the 
sixteenth that were far-reaching in their influ¬ 
ence. The first was the discovery of this great 
Western Continent that we now occupy and en¬ 
joy. Columbus discovered America in 1492. 
The other event was the rise of Protestantism in 
the person of Martin Luther, in 1517. Protest¬ 
antism, hoAvever, did not take on at once an ac¬ 
tive, vigorous missionary spirit. There were 
still about three hundred years to pass by be- 


Christ the Light of the World. 


5 


fore wha/t is commonly known as “Protestant¬ 
ism” should wake up to this, the greatest of all 
religious questions. 

During this time the Catholics, having lost 
ground at home, regained their losses by push¬ 
ing out into foreign fields. Early in the six¬ 
teenth century Spain and Portugal pushed west¬ 
ward and overran Mexico and all of South 
America. They were also found in China and 
in Japan and other countries of the East. Cath¬ 
olics were in Japan more than three hundred 
years before Protestantism ever reached her 
shores. 

There were various reasons why Protestant¬ 
ism lingered so long. 

One reason was, they had little faith in what 
are commonly known as “foreign missions,” 
and it is somewhat singular that they made ex¬ 
actly the same arguments against them that are 
made at the present day. 

In the second place, others made this objec¬ 
tion: they said they opposed foreign missions 
“on the ground that missions to the heathen 
were neither necessary nor proper.” Gentiles 
themselves assumed the attitude of Jews, and 
looked upon these people across the sea, these 
barbarians, as dogs. Even to this day, across in 


6 


Christ the Light of the World. 


South Africa, where the Boers have had rule, 
they have placed over the church doors: ‘ ‘ Dogs 
and Hottentots not admitted. ’’ 

Others said, in the third place: “The time is 
waxing late.” They made the mistake that 
was made in the time of Paul of believing that 
the end was near at hand, and it was useless 
to begin such a great work as the Christianizing 
of the heathen. 

Others made the excuse that the commission 
had already been fulfilled, and I suppose you 
have heard in our day that same excuse. This 
is one of the most peculiar objections a man 
can raise to preaching to those who have never 
heard the gospel. If the commission was ful¬ 
filled in the days of the apostles, how is it that 
we happen to have come into possession of the 
gospel! Have we not taken to ourselves that 
which does not properly belong to us! If we 
admit that it was the proper thing for us to re¬ 
ceive it, does that not point as clearly to the 
fact that we ought to pass it on to some one 
else! It is just as plain as a question can be 
that every argument we make that the gospel 
should have been given to us could be made 
with equal force as to why it should be given 
to those who have not received it. This objec- 


Christ the Light of the World. 


7 


lion is one of those peculiar cases in which hu¬ 
man nature manifests its selfishness, which is 
illustrated in the old saying about the dog in 
the manger. 

In the fifth place, Protestantism, during these 
three centuries, spent its strength and time in 
combating the errors of Rome; and also, un¬ 
fortunately, failing to agree among themselves 
and borrowing from the “mother church ,, the 
spirit of persecution, the various forms of Prot¬ 
estantism practiced the same against each other. 
Thus we have as great and good a man as Cal¬ 
vin giving his voice in favor of burning Ser- 
vetus at the stake. 

Now there is a peculiar similarity between 
this particular phase of Protestantism and pres¬ 
ent conditions in the religious world. Take, for 
example, the Restoration of the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury, when men began to step out and say: “Let 
us stand upon the word of the Lord as our plea, 
and let us be one, as the Bible makes us one.” 
I fear those great men and those of us who have 
followed after have spent too much of our 
strength combating the errors of the people 
around us, so that we have almost lost sight of 
the great commission. While we have been op¬ 
posing their errors, they, like the Catholics, 


8 


Christ the Light of the World. 


have been pushing out into these great mission 
fields in the regions beyond; and now, when we 
go as missionaries to a new people, there they 
have been established a century or two already. 
Questions of how missionary work should be 
done have sprung up, and we have spent too 
much of our strength in showing the folly of 
doing it the wrong way. It would have been 
better during all this time to have been present¬ 
ing the right way by a practical demonstration. 

There are two distinct elements among those 
who oppose the various missionary boards. 
Many have risen up against them because they 
believe them to be wrong; they oppose them be¬ 
cause they believe them to be a violation both 
of the spirit and letter of the word of God. 
Again, others, it seems to me, have fallen in 
with the opposition to the hoards, not because 
they were so in love with the scriptural way of 
doing it, but rather because they did not want 
to do it either way. They believe in “home 
missions’’ because this means to send every dol¬ 
lar home—right down into their own pockets— 
and keep it there. They do not think much 
about missions of any kind, because their 
thoughts are given to increasing their bank ac¬ 
counts and to extending the boundary of their 


Christ the Light of the World. 


9 


farms. When they see an article that opposes 
the boards, they say: “That’s right; I always 
said boards are wrong, and I’ll just keep my 
money.” Opposition to societies is no excuse 
for keeping back our means, staying at home 
ourselves, and discouraging those that do go. 
The unquestionable way is wide open to all. 

Now t we that believe in doing it the Lord’s 
way will find it profitable to give less attention 
to the errors of those around us in doing mis¬ 
sionary work and more attention to the Lord’s 
way of doing it; let us push out in the right 
line and give the people an affirmative argu¬ 
ment. This will be effective in two ways: it 
will be carrying out the Lord’s will in the evan¬ 
gelization of the world, and it will present the 
Lord’s plan by practical demonstration, and will 
disarm those who say they do not do the work 
because they object to doing it in the wrong 
way. If we push out in the right way, that not 
even the most scrupulous can question, they 
will be left with not even a shadow of excuse 
for neglect. I believe the brighter day is dawn¬ 
ing when the churches are beginning to see that 
the most effective argument for missions is to 
do the work. 


10 


Christ the Light or the World. 


The Awakening of the Nineteenth Century. 

Now we come to the end of the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury and the beginning of the nineteenth. Here 
we find another marked change in regard to mis¬ 
sion work. During the three centuries of which 
I spoke, missionary work, both of the Protest¬ 
ants and the Roman Catholics, partook some¬ 
what of a commercial enterprise, or for the pur¬ 
pose of national conquest, to obtain new terri¬ 
tory, as Spain and Portugal, for instance, ex¬ 
tended their dominions. They were not purely 
religious enterprises. There were chaplains 
who went with the government ships, and they 
taught the people of the new lands something of 
religion; hut it was to bring them into subjec¬ 
tion politically, rather than to Christ. Then 
there was the East India, Company. They, to 
some extent, favored religious teachers, but it 
was mainly for the purpose of extending their 
business. If in any way the business seemed 
to be imperiled by missionary effort, then the 
company was against it. “The East India 
Company was prejudiced against missionary ef¬ 
fort, believing it would tend to make the natives 
discontented and rebellious. ’ ’ But at the be¬ 
ginning of the nineteenth century there was a 


Christ the Light of the World. 


11 


step in advance. Those most interested in mis¬ 
sionary questions began to get together and 
study how they could proceed purely for the 
purpose of Christian evangelization. 

The first society was formed in England in 
1792—the “Particular Baptist Society for Prop¬ 
agating the Gospel Among the Heathen.” 
William Carey was their first missionary. He 
was preaching for a small church in Leicester, 
England, when he decided to go himself to the 
foreign field. His brethren said: “We have 
been praying for the spread of Christ’s king¬ 
dom among the heathen, and now God requires 
us to make the first sacrifice.” It acted like 
that crooked stick used as a weapon by the na¬ 
tives of Australia, called the “boomerang.” 
Sometimes when it is thrown it will come hack 
and strike the person who throws it. Those 
people had been praying for God to enlighten 
the heathen, and their prayers came hack with, 
a blow upon themselves in their having to give 
up their own beloved minister. 

It is interesting to trace the life of that man; 
to see how persevering and consecrated he was, 
and to see how reluctantly his brethren took 
hold of the work. They raised, to begin with, 
the great sum of twelve pounds, two shillings, 


12 


Christ the Light of the World. 


and six pence, or about sixty dollars, and that 
was tlie great missionary fund with which Carey 
started off to India, 

Adoniram Judson is considered the apostle of 
foreign missions from the United States. He 
was sent by the Congregationalists under what 
was called “The American Board of Commis¬ 
sioners for Foreign Missions.’’ He was con¬ 
vinced on the way, however, that immersion was 
the proper baptism, and he and his wife were 
baptized by the Baptist missionaries on their 
arrival at Calcutta. 

Now let ns consider the various enterprises 
that have contributed to the Christianizing of 
the heathen. First, there were those political 
enterprises mixed with religion, but not purely 
for the conversion of the heathen. Next, those 
of a commercial nature. Then came purely re¬ 
ligious organizations in the form of missionary 
societies. The latter was a marked step in ad¬ 
vance in giving the gospel to the heathen world. 
I do not know why it is; but if we study the gos¬ 
pel, we learn that the lower forms of religion 
usually precede higher forms. Roman Catholi¬ 
cism. and corrupter forms of Protestantism have 
preceded the purer and higher forms of Chris¬ 
tianity, and I believe there is still a higher and 


Christ the Light of the World. 


13 


purer form that is more scriptural now being 
propagated than in former times. I am unable 
to explain why these things are so, but they 
seem to be true nevertheless. 

Hopeful Signs of Our Times. 

At the present time there is a tendency to go 
back, back beyond that time when the mistake 
was made, at the end of the fourth century, of 
forbidding lay preaching. Let us mention some 
of the indications. You are all acquainted with 
the custom among the various denominations, 
first started by the Methodists, of establishing 
what are called “Living Links,” or, in other 
words, encouraging a particular church to sup¬ 
port some particular missionary. I have before 
referred to the fact that among the Southern 
Methodists are seventy-seven churches each one 
of which supports a missionary. Many others 
are working in the same way. This is pointing 
back in the right direction to the time and or¬ 
der when Paul and Barnabas started out as 
“living links” from the church at Antioch. 
There are some things about it that are not cor¬ 
rect, but, nevertheless, these are steps in the 
right direction. 

Also, that great movement that is sweeping 


14 


Christ the Light of the World. 


over nearly all the world, “The Laymen’s Mis¬ 
sionary Movement,” is a very distinct effort to 
get back to the apostolic methods. Their motto 
is, “Each one save one”—to get each man 
and woman actively engaged in the missionary 
cause. This is encouraging; it is the same 
spirit as that abbreviated form of the commis¬ 
sion in Revelation, which says: “And he that 
heareth, let him say, Come.” 

In the third place, you will find all over the 
world what are called “independent missiona¬ 
ries.” We find them in China, in India, in Af¬ 
rica, and in Japan—-missionaries who do not 
affiliate with foreign missionary societies. Some 
fifty years ago there was a missionary who sev¬ 
ered his connection with the London Society 
and started what is known as the ‘ ‘ China Inland 
Mission.” To-day there are connected with 
that mission not less than nine hundred mission¬ 
aries. This great company of workers are sup¬ 
ported by freewill offerings. Other instances 
might be given. 

The churches of Christ here in America have 
been laboring in a similar manner, endeavoring 
to get back to apostolic Christianity. I believe 
that as people prove by the folly of their own 
experiments the wisdom of God’s plan in mis- 


Christ the Light of the World. 


15 


sions, there will be yet many more who will fall 
in with it. But this is new to people in this 
twentieth century of organizations; we are not 
very well acquainted with it, and the work is 
not going forward as rapidly as it will in years 
to come. 

Nevertheless, we have much to be encouraged 
over, and the signs of the times are that we are 
getting ready for greater things in the future. 
I believe, beloved friends, our attitude should 
be just what T have indicated. Rather than be 
spending our time and strength in fighting the 
errors we see around us, we should he pushing 
out doing the work in the way it should be. 
Of course we must point out error; but instead 
of allowing that to be our chief object, we should 
make it our chief purpose to study and follow 
the right way. Admitting and accepting all the 
good others do, let us rather say: “Yet show I 
unto you a more excellent way. ’ ’ 

Our Peculiar Advantages. 

We are living under peculiar conditions, con¬ 
ditions of peculiar advantage. There never has 
been a time in all the history of the world when 
the nations were so thrown together as they are 
now, when the nations were on such friendly 


16 


Christ the Light op the World. 


terms as they are now, when the nations had 
snch facilities for communication as they have 
now. Both by land and sea there is a complete 
network of communications joining every prin¬ 
cipal country with every other country on the 
face of the earth. Not a day passes hut the 
great steamers, those “palaces of the sea,” 
leave our shores, both east and west, and every 
one that leaves takes upon its decks our people. 
Ships also continually come to our shores, and 
every one brings other peoples to this land. It 
is interesting to go to one of our great seaports, 
like San Francisco, or Yokohama, in Japan, and 
watch the passengers as they come ashore; and 
scarcely a ship comes or goes that does not bear 
some messenger of the cross of Christ. I have 
gone down to Yokohama and watched the peo¬ 
ple come ashore from vessels just from the home 
land, and in almost every instance there were 
among them men and women in the missionary 
work. I have often felt sad, though, and dis¬ 
appointed, because I could go down to that great 
landing and watch the various missionaries be¬ 
longing to the various denominational enter¬ 
prises coming ashore and passing on to take 
their places; but one might watch year in and 
year out and not see a single man or a single 


Christ the Light of the World. . 17 


woman from the churches of Christ. We criti¬ 
cise others, and justly, for leaving off the last 
half of the commission; but I fear we have com¬ 
mitted the same mistake as they by leaving off 
the first half, the very first word of which is 
“Go.” 

Now, what we need is to get the churches 
aroused—every man and every woman in the 
church up and doing for the spread of the gos¬ 
pel, both at home and abroad, and get them so 
full of this spirit that they must do something. 
Out in California they do things on a large scale. 
When I was there in July, 1909, a brother took 
me out to see one of those great harvesting ma¬ 
chines. We got into a buggy and rode and rode, 
till it seemed we would never get there. When 
we finally reached the place, something had hap¬ 
pened and they had stopped to mend it. But 
in a little while everything was all right, and 
they were ready to move on. The brother ex¬ 
plained that I had come out to watch the ma¬ 
chine, and they said: “If you don’t mind the 
dust, you may come up on the platform where 
you can see.” The driver was ready, the men 
at their places, with a team of twenty-eight 
horses, and they said it was not a full team, 
either. Thirty-two is a full team. When the 
3 


18 


Christ the Light of the World. 


time came, the driver gave the signal, and the 
horses were so well trained that it was marvel¬ 
ous to see how they started out. First, those 
six all abreast back at the machine began to pull 
on the traces, then those in front of them, and 
so on till, like a wave, as it were, passing over 
their backs, I saw that great team get itself into 
position; and when the last ones began to lean 
against their traces, that old machine moved. 
The blade, which was twenty feet long, began to 
rattle back and forth, the wheat began to fall 
before the blade, was caught up on the revolv¬ 
ing canvas and carried into the thrashing ma¬ 
chine, thrashed and poured into sacks, and those 
sacks dumped out, three in a place, across the 
field, in a row as far as one could see. 

When I saw that, I said to myself: 44 That is 
the church at work.” Whenever we get every 
man and every woman to leaning against the 
traces, something must happen. The trouble is, 
but few are leaning against the traces, while 
some are even trying to kick out. We must get 
every man and every woman to leaning against 
the traces. When we get in line with this move¬ 
ment and feel and experience the delights of it, 
we will say: “I had no idea we could accom¬ 
plish so much. ’ * Let us make an earnest effort 


Christ the Light of the World. 


19 


to get ourselves into line, and never cease tlie 
effort until the everlasting gospel is preached 
throughout the whole world. I believe there is 
upon us at the present time one of the most 
thrilling and one of the grandest opportunities 
that has ever come to a people. I verily believe 
we are in the midst of that age predicted by 
John, when he saw an “angel flying in mid 
heaven, having eternal good tidings to proclaim 
unto them that dwell on the earth, and unto ev¬ 
ery nation and tribe and tongue and people.’’ 
That angel, with his outstretched wings, repre¬ 
sents the messengers of the cross who are to-day 
flying with the message of life to every nook 
and corner of the inhabited earth. 


20 


Christ the Light of the World. 


PRESENT-DAY MISSIONS IN ALL LANDS. 


4 ‘ Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, 
that they are white already unto harvest.” 
(John 4: 35.) 

In order to understand what is in the Bible, 
we must also, to a certain degree, understand 
what is outside of the Bible. The Bible applies 
to man and the world in which he lives. In or¬ 
der to understand the language of the Bible, we 
must understand the human race to which it 
refers and the world in which he lives. 

For instance, in what is commonly called the 
“great commission,” Jesus says: “Go ye into 
all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
creature.’’ Before we can grasp the import of 
the expression, ‘ ‘ all the world, ’ ’ we must study 
geography. Before we can thoroughly under¬ 
stand what is meant by “every creature,” we 
must study the human race. 

An Explanation of the Map. 

Now this great map hanging before you rep¬ 
resents the world and the entire human race. 



Christ the Light of the World. 


21 


Very properly it puts all men under some form 
of religion. You see, it is colored to indicate 
the different kinds of religion that now exist on 
the face of the earth. There is a set of squares 
between the two hemispheres also, correspond¬ 
ing in color to the colors about over the map. 
The first we notice is the dark, slate color, across 
which is written the word “Heathen.” As you 
notice from the proportion of the squares, each 
of which represents 10,000,000 of people, the 
slate-colored ones include a little more than half 
of the world’s population, or about 800,000,000. 

Next comes the green, representing Moham¬ 
medanism, a peculiar corruption of Judaism, 
which had its rise in the country of Arabia in 
the fifth century after Christ. This peculiar 
form of religion includes about 200,000,000 of 
the world’s population, or 40,000,000 more than 
all Protestantism put together. 

Next, we have the brown color, representing 
the Greek Church. Away back in the early his¬ 
tory of the Christian religion there arose a con¬ 
tention between Constantinople, in the East, 
and Rome, in the West, as to which should have 
the rule—which should have the greatest reli¬ 
gious authority. They could not settle it, and, 
as a result, there was a divide, making the first 


22 


Christ the Light of the World. 


two sects of the Christian religion—the Westem 
section, or the Roman Catholic Church, and the 
Eastern section, or the Greek Catholic Church. 
The Greek Catholics represent about 120,000,000 
of the world’s population. 

Then comes the yellow, including a large por¬ 
tion of Europe—Portugal, Spain, France, Aus¬ 
tria, and Italy—representing also most of South 
America and a part of Eastern Canada. The 
Roman Catholics claim about 230,000,000 of the 
world’s population. 

The last to consider is the white, representing 
Protestantism, or those who protested. Some 
of these little people may not understand that 
word “Protestant.” A long time ago, about 
the beginning of the sixteenth century, there 
were men who rose up and strongly opposed the 
corrupt teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, 
and strong opposition to a thing is sometimes 
called a “protest;” and hence they were called 
“protestants,” or “Protestants.” Protestant¬ 
ism to-day represents about 160,000,000 of the 
world’s population. 

Now this is not a very pleasing picture, hut 
we have to deal with things as they are, not as 
we would have them to be. It is encouraging 
for us to know that the colorings of the map 


Christ the Light of the World. 


23 


are gradually being changed, and the world’s 
condition is not to-day what it was a century 
ago. There is at the present time scarcely a 
country on all the face of the earth that is closed 
to the Christian religion; and if the map were 
marked more minutely, little white spots would 
be found dotted all over heathendom. 

Spanish America. 

I desire briefly to pass over the main heathen, 
or pagan, countries that are attracting most at¬ 
tention at the present time. First, we will be¬ 
gin with our nearest neighbor, Spanish America, 
including Mexico, Central America, and South 
America. There are about twenty different in¬ 
dependent States included in this territory. 
The population is about 47,500,000. The con¬ 
quest of Spanish America was early in the six¬ 
teenth century, carried on by Spain, and, as a 
result, you see it is yellow, or of the same reli¬ 
gion as Spain. Until the beginning of the nine¬ 
teenth century all this vast territory south of us 
was subject to that little European country; but 
about the year 1809 there was a restlessness and 
revolution that took place in those South Ameri¬ 
can countries, and in about twelve years every 
one of them broke away from Spain and became 


24 


Christ the Light of the World. 


independent republics. Later on they also 
broke away from Roman Catholic authority, un¬ 
til, at the present time, there is not a republic 
in all South America or Mexico but what is 
open to the proclamation of the gospel. But 
modern missions have had their martyrs. 

There was a man by the name of Allen Gard¬ 
ner, for a long time an officer in the British 
Navy, and by being thus associated he was per¬ 
mitted to travel over the different parts of the 
world, and, seeing the worship at a heathen tem¬ 
ple in China, his heart was stirred within him 
to do something for the benighted. His first 
attempts were in Africa, but circumstances 
finally led him, in the year 1850, to go to South 
America, away down to the island of Terra Del 
Fuego. He and a company of six landed there, 
and navigation across the sea being very lim¬ 
ited in those days, another ship was not ex¬ 
pected for six months. As a result, before he 
was reached the second time, he and his entire 
party starved to death. He left behind him, 
written and found near where he died, a portion 
of the sixty-second Psalm (verses 5-7): “My 
soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expecta¬ 
tion is from him. He only is my rock and my 
salvation: he is my defense; I shall not be 


Christ the Light of the World. 


25 


moved. In God is my salvation and my glory: 
the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in 
God.” 

In 1859 there was another company sent out, 
a company of nine this time. While they were 
engaged in worship, the natives, like so many 
ferocious beasts, rushed in upon them all unsus¬ 
pected and murdered the last one of them. 

Still the work was not given up. They con¬ 
ceived the idea of starting work out a little to 
the east, on one of the Falkland Islands, a Brit¬ 
ish colony, and taking certain of those wild sav¬ 
ages and training them and Christianizing them, 
so that when they had prepared them for na¬ 
tive workers they might send them back among 
their fellow-countrymen as missionaries. This 
is the method that is followed at the present 
time. 

Without going further into detail in regard 
to the beginnings in South America, let us 
mention something of the results. For forty- 
eight years there were only fifty converts. Now 
there are 383 male missionaries and 299 female 
missionaries, or a total of 682. There are 237 
native workers, 37,840 believers, and 6,000 stu¬ 
dents in the mission schools. 

In regard to Mexico, it has a population of 


26 


Christ the Light of the World. 


13,650,000. The inhabitants consist of the na¬ 
tive Indians, Spaniards, and a mixture of the 
two. General Scott, early in the past century, 
opened the way for the Bible in Mexico. Miss 
Malinda Rankin was the first missionary there. 
At present there are 210 missionaries in Mexico, 
546 native workers, 469 congregations, and 20,- 
000 believers. Missionary work is about forty 
years old in Mexico. 


Africa. 

Let us pass on now across the sea, and we 
will consider first that great and dark conti¬ 
nent, the continent of Africa. To give some 
idea of the magnitude of that great country, it 
contains 12,000,000 square miles of territory. 
All South America and North America com¬ 
bined contain only about 17,000,000. Africa 
is three times as large as all Europe. It con¬ 
tains a population of about 175,000,000. All 
around the coast is low. The central part of 
Africa consists of highlands and mountains. 
Some portions are almost fatal to health; but 
it has been found in late years that Africa is 
like almost every other country—like our own, 
for instance—it has its dangerous places in 


Christ the Light of the World. 


27 


which to live, and also places that are more 
healthful. 

Remember, now, we are on scriptural ground 
—I mean a territory concerning which we read 
in the Bible. In Northern Africa, or Egypt, the 
Bible has had some of its most fruitful results. 
That eloquent man, Apollos, whom Priscilla and 
Aquila took aside and taught the way more per¬ 
fectly, was an African Jew. His native place 
was Alexandria, in Egypt. Alexandria was 
also one of the greatest centers of learning in 
the early history of the church, and had the 
largest library in the world. It was in North¬ 
east Africa that another Bible character, the 
Ethiopian, lived. To he more explicit, the pres¬ 
ent Abyssinia occupies about the same place as 
that of Ethiopia. Tradition has it that the 
Ethiopian whom Philip baptized went hack to 
that country, and there established the worship 
of the true God. However that may be, from 
a very early date down to this present time, in 
Abyssinia they have had the Bible, and are hold ¬ 
ing on to the Christian religion even to this very 
day, though in a very corrupted manner. 

There is also in Africa the greatest desert on 
the earth. It stretches all the way from the 
River Nile clear to the Atlantic Ocean, and cov- 


28 


Christ the Light of the World. 


ers a territory equal to all Europe, or 4,000,000 
square miles. 

The religions of Africa are mostly as follows: 
There are about 1,000,000 Jews; and, using the 
word in its accommodated sense, there are about 
8,000,000 Christians in Africa. About one-third 
of these are Roman Catholics. Mohammedan¬ 
ism has about 60,000,000 people in Africa. You 
can see from the green color on the map that 
all the Northern portion of Africa is Moham¬ 
medan. I read an article by a returned mis¬ 
sionary from Africa a short time ago in which 
the writer said that this great and corrupted 
form of religion was spreading itself from the 
north southward over Africa like a great cloud, 
and if something was not done to arrest its prog¬ 
ress, the time would come when all Africa would 
be under the dominion of the false prophet. 

There are also about 100,000,000 pagans in 
Africa holding to all kinds of foolish supersti¬ 
tions, under the most abject slavery to their 
superstitious ideas and pagan practices. It was 
on this great continent that for about four hun¬ 
dred years that awful slave trade was carried 
on. During that time it is said that about 40,- 
000,000 of the black people were sold into 
slavery. I am glad that we have gotten beyond 


Christ the Light of the World. 


29 


that at the present time; but still Africa is not 
free. It is said that from one ship there was 
landed a single missionary, and at the same 
time there were landed fifty thousand barrels of 
whisky. So Africa is still in a state of slavery 
of the worst kind. I am glad to know that 
strenuous efforts are being made in order to 
break up this form of slavery also. 

The Moravians began work in Africa in 1737. 
They go to the hardest places they can find, and 
it is said that they have one missionary in the 
foreign field for every sixty members. In 1817 
Robert MofFat also entered the great and dark 
continent as a missionary. In 1840 the great 
explorer, David Livingstone, entered Africa. 

Without going further into detail as to the 
early work in that great and dark continent, 
let us look at some of the results. There are 
some great lakes up in Central East Africa. 
These lakes correspond somewhat to the Great 
Lakes on the Northern border of our own coun¬ 
try. Travel in Africa is exceedingly difficult— 
no public highways to speak of. Everything is 
in the wilds, only a footpath here and there, 
and, being a tropical country, the undergrowth 
is such that it is almost impossible to get 
through, so that these lakes are indispensable, 


30 


Christ the Light of the World. 


as, together with the rivers, they furnish the 
highways. There are seven steamers now ply¬ 
ing these lakes; there are also nineteen other 
steamers that go up and down the great Congo, 
a rival of the Nile, or the Mississippi of our own 
country. These are all mission steamers used 
solely for the purpose of conveying missiona¬ 
ries, with mission supplies, to their various 
places of labor. 

There are nearly 3,000 English and American 
missionaries in Africa, some 6,400 native work¬ 
ers, 170,000 students in mission schools, and 
240,000 believers. 

It seems that the most promising place in all 
Africa for Christian work is the section called 
the ‘‘Uganda.” It is very encouraging to know 
some of the facts connected with Uganda. Now, 
in order to give you some idea of the work be¬ 
ing carried on there, I desire to read a para¬ 
graph or two from this volume, called the “New 
Horoscope of Missions,’’ by Dennis: “In those 
pioneer times from three to four months of toil¬ 
some, dangerous travel were required to reach 
Uganda from the coast, while to-day steam fa¬ 
cilities are at our command, and the journey is 
only a matter of three or four days. If we look 
about us in what might be called the ‘land of 


Christ the Light of the World. 


31 


missionary magic/ we shall find there a self- 
supporting church of over 60,000 baptized Chris¬ 
tians ; and of this number at least 56,000, or five- 
sixths, have been added within the last ten 
years. The number of baptisms, according to 
a late report, now exceeds 9,000 annually. The 
Protestant Church organization of the kingdom 
of Uganda receives no financial help whatever 
from England, except the salaries of the Brit¬ 
ish foreign missionaries. It builds its own 
churches, which already number nearly 800, and 
also supports its own Christian schools, num¬ 
bering over fifty, paying the salaries of the na¬ 
tive teachers. On the heights of Mengo an im¬ 
mense cathedral has been reared, which will ac¬ 
commodate between three and four thousand 
worshipers, and is usually crowded at special 
services. The social life of the country has 
been greatly purified and uplifted, even to the 
extent of placing polygamy under the ban of 
public opinion and securing the voluntary aban¬ 
donment of slavery. The young king is a Chris¬ 
tian, and many of the highest officials of the 
government are men of evangelical faith, while 
liberty of conscience is recognized as a religious 
privilege and a social law. Uganda will soon 
be a radiating center of evangelistic effort, from 


32 


Christ the Light of the World. 


which an effort will be made from the south 
into the Sudan along paths which foreign mis¬ 
sionaries would find it difficult to tread in con¬ 
ducting on a permanent basis ordinary mission¬ 
ary operations. ’’ 

In view of the rapid strides the gospel is now 
making in Africa, how fitting becomes the lan¬ 
guage of the psalmist: “Ethiopia shall haste to 
stretch out her hands unto God! ’ ’ 

Now, passing on to the work in North Africa, 
or Egypt, I make this quotation from the July, 
1910, number of the Missionary Review of the 
World: “The total amount paid by the people 
in Egypt in 1907, including book sales, and in 
connection with educational and medical work, 
was $157,498, while the amount sent from 
America was $114,523. For every dollar sent 
by America, Egypt gave $1.37. ’ ’ This is inter¬ 
esting for us to know, because the impression 
is made on the minds of some that these con¬ 
verts in heathen lands will not give to the Chris¬ 
tian cause, and that their conversion reaches no 
further than the loaves and fishes. 

Turkey. 

Let us turn now to Turkey, that difficult coun¬ 
try to reach. Although Turkey has been so 1 an- 


Christ the Light of the World. 33 

tagonistic to the gospel, yet we are again in a 
Bible land, or in territory where the Bible early 
made its way and where the Christian religion 
was planted. There has been a remnant of 
Christian believers in the empire of Turkey 
from apostolic days, and it is estimated that 
there are to-day of the “Armenian Christians ,’ 9 
as they are commonly called, from 2,000,000 to 
3,000,000. 

For a long, long time, and until quite recently, 
a Christian missionary was an enemy in Tur¬ 
key; but the impossible has happened, and we 
are all more or less acquainted with the won¬ 
derful revolution or change that has taken place 
there within a very few years—how Turkey de¬ 
posed her ruler, and the young Sultan took the 
reins of government and gave the people a con¬ 
stitution and freedom in religion. Last year 
the American Bible Society sold in Turkey 10,- 
000 copies of the Bible. 

The first of February I heard a missionary in 
Louisville, lately returned from Turkey, and he 
said that the Turkish government, like Japan 
some forty years ago, was now working out a 
system of public schools, and, being short of 
teachers qualified to fill the various situations 
opened by this new enterprise, they were apply- 
4 


34 


Christ the Light of the World. 


ing to the mission schools for teachers. Think 
of Turkey doing this! 

There is a little Mohammedan country north 
of Turkey called “Bokhara.” I came across a 
very interesting little extract the other day in 
regard to a certain convert there who was once 
a Mohammedan. He is now a teacher in one of 
the high schools. He gave utterance to the fol¬ 
lowing words: “I am convinced that Jesus 
Christ will conquer Mohammed. There is no 
doubt about it, because Christ is King in heaven 
and on earth, and his kingdom fills heaven now, 
and will soon fill the earth.” It is truly re¬ 
freshing to know that away over there in that 
cruelly antagonistic country which has so long 
opposed the Christian religion we find one of 
their own people giving utterance to an expres¬ 
sion like this. 

Russia, 

Passing on northward, let us go to that great 
country called “Russia,” the state religion of 
which is the Greek Catholic Church, called by 
themselves the ‘ ‘ Holy Orthodox Church.’ ’ Rus¬ 
sia, like Africa, is a country of great territory, 
and it is about two-thirds as large, including 
about 8,000,000 square miles. It has a popula¬ 
tion of some 150,000,000, Christianity in a 


Christ the Light of the World. 


35 


crude form entered Russia in the tenth century, 
but they established a state religion, and, until 
very recently, no one was allowed to believe and 
think for himself. Every one had to conform 
to the state religion or else suffer the conse¬ 
quences, which was sometimes to be sent across 
the great Siberian plains over to the island of 
Sakhalin and remain in banishment. To-day, 
though, there are about thirty different Protes¬ 
tant denominations in Russia. 

I heard a missionary, returned from Russia 
the first of February, 1910, in the city of Louis¬ 
ville, and he said since Russia had given a con¬ 
stitution and freedom of religion there were at 
least 15,000,000 of the people of Russia who had 
broken away from the “orthodox’’ church and 
were studying the Bible for themselves. Just 
as the Protestants, in the beginning of the six¬ 
teenth century, were considered by the Western 
section, or the Catholic Church, heretics, even 
so now Russia is repeating history, and these 
fifteen millions of people who have declined to 
subscribe to the Russian Church are called 
“heretics.” 

Also, I heard a Methodist missionary, speak¬ 
ing in regard to Russia, say that they have one 
missionary in Russia, and these people who 


36 


Christ the Light of the World. 


have broken away from the state religion are 
trying to work out a basis of belief for them¬ 
selves, and for seven nights in succession they 
invited their missionary to come and explain to 
them the doctrines of Methodism. When I 
heard him say that, I felt within myself what a 
great pity God’s people do not have their repre¬ 
sentatives there simply to go to those people 
with God’s basis of belief and, in a straightfor¬ 
ward, plain, simple way, without any denomina¬ 
tional incumbrances whatever, present to them 
the divine basis of belief; and I wondered why 
it was that we were not on the ground, for, to 
my mind, there is not a richer field on the face 
of the earth to-day for the propagation of the 
gospel—the pure, simple gospel—than Russia. 
If others have split the commission, neglecting 
the last half of it, we have also split it at the 
same place, and have neglected the first half. 

Now, when you go to Russia, you do not go to 
a pagan people. While, of course, their religion 
is very crude and is not much above paganism, 
yet you do not go to people who are to be in¬ 
cluded among those commonly known as “pa¬ 
gans.” Neither do you go to a nation that is 
away back in civilization and education. Now, 
of course, Russia has much yet to learn in that 


Christ the Light of the World. 37 

regard; but tbe Russian nation is a brainy na¬ 
tion, and they are up in many things. Not only 
so, but they are a similar nation to ourselves. 
I have seen many of them in Japan. For in¬ 
stance, I have seen the Russian sailors march¬ 
ing the streets, and unless you should stop and 
attempt to talk with them and find that they did 
not talk “American,” you would not know but 
what they were a company of broad-shouldered, 
strong-armed Americans. 

In Bowling Green there is a student who 
pointed out to me on the map where he lived in 
Russia, and said his father and mother were 
living there still, and his desire is to go back to 
Russia when he finishes school and engage in 
missionary work. I hope and pray that this 
young brother will not get such a taste of Amer¬ 
ica that he will be turned aside from his pur¬ 
pose. 

India. 

Let us pass on to this great field south of Rus¬ 
sia, India. Some two hundred years ago there 
were two missionaries that went out from Den¬ 
mark to India. It is said they stood all day 
on the shore before they could find a place to 
lodge. They were now in a heathen country 
consisting of some 300,000,000 people. Later 


38 


Christ the Light of the World. 


on, in the year 1793, there was a Baptist who 
went out from England, from the town of Lei¬ 
cester, and also landed, after a long and tedious 
voyage by an old-fashioned sailing ship, on the 
shores of India. He, too, met with his difficul¬ 
ties. The natives were unfriendly, and then the 
great East India Company, composed of Eng¬ 
lishmen, were opposed to missionary effort. 
They were afraid that, if the people were en¬ 
lightened and came to know their rights in busi¬ 
ness, the company would lose something, and 
they considered Carey an ‘ ‘ interloper. ’ ’ Carey 
and Thomas, his coworker, labored seven years 
in India with only one convert. 

Also, the American Baptists worked twenty 
years in South India, at the end of which time 
they could only report one native preacher and 
a little church of nine believers. One of their 
missionaries, Mr. Jewett, returned home in 1863 
broken down in health, and the general outlook 
was so unpromising that his brethren were 
thinking seriously of closing out the work and 
retiring from the field. He was asked for his 
opinion, and his reply has become historic: 
“ Well, brethren, I do not know what your mind 
is; but if the Lord restores my health, I am go¬ 
ing back to live, and, if need be, to die, among 


Christ the Light of the World. 


39 


the Telugus.” “Then,” they said, “we must 
send a man over to give you a Christian burial. ’ ’ 
They labored on in India, and in 1878 the Bap¬ 
tist people in one day baptized 2,222 people, and 
in about six weeks they had baptized 8,691. 

George Sherwood Eddy, whom also I heard in 
Louisville the first of February, said that in 
South India there were three other denomina¬ 
tions operating—the Congregationalists, the 
Church of England, and the Methodists—and 
that they had about 150,000 converts. He said, 
further, that these denominations all cooper¬ 
ated as one, and were not known in India by 
those different names, “but we have only the 
church of Christ in South India.” He added: 
“We are miles ahead of you.” One member of 
the audience did not like that much, and called 
out: 1 ‘ Here, here! We are together over here. ’’ 
Now, of course, there is a great deal yet to be 
accomplished before people are together reli¬ 
giously, but there is this to be said: The effort 
of the people in what are called “Christian 
lands” to convert the pagan nations has been 
one of the most powerful factors to open their 
eyes to the fact that a divided state in religion 
is not according to the Holy Spirit, and it is 


40 


Christ the Light of the World. 


perhaps doing more to-day to bring people to¬ 
gether than any other one thing. 

As to results, generally speaking, there are 
to-day in India some 4,346 missionaries, 25,000 
native workers, 500,000 believers, and some 2,- 
923,000 under Christian influence. 


China. 

Let us pass on to the neighbor of India, the 
great empire of China, with her 400,000,000 peo¬ 
ple. Missionary work in India is some two hun¬ 
dred years old, but in China it is just a little 
over a hundred years old. The first missionary 
to China was Robert Morrison, in the year 1807. 
When Morrison landed in China—well, he did 
not land in China, but on the island of Macao. 
Such was the antagonism of the Catholics that 
he had to keep himself in secret. He had to 
clothe himself in Chinese style and go out at 
night for exercise. On the mainland his life 
would be equally in peril by the natives. Mor¬ 
rison labored twenty-seven years in China, 
translated the Bible, made a grammar, a dic¬ 
tionary, and one convert! Twenty-seven years ’ 
work and one convert! Forty-six years after 
Morrison arrived in China there were only 5 
churches and 351 members. Now, or in 1907, 


Christ the Light of the World. 


41 


which was the completion of the first hundred 
years ’ work, there were 632 great religious cen¬ 
ters, 5,102 out stations, 3,900 missionaries, 9,000 
native helpers, 200,000 converts, 5,000 students 
in the mission schools, and, at the great centen¬ 
nial at Shanghai, celebrating their hundred 
years’ work, by the native believers and mis¬ 
sionaries, there were five of the provincial gov¬ 
ernors who sent representatives to congratulate 
them. See what a change has come over the en¬ 
tire nation! The native believers of the China 
Inland Mission gave in one year at the rate of 
$2.37 per member. That, perhaps, would go be¬ 
yond the average amount of the churches of 
Christ in the United States. 

In Pekin, the capital of the country, there is 
a college called the ‘ ‘ Union Medical College and 
Hospital . 9 9 It cost $44,000. The Chinese them¬ 
selves gave over $16,000 of this amount. 

Japan. 

Passing on to that little 61 Land of the Rising 
Sun,” the empire of Japan, we have a few re¬ 
marks before we close. While missionary work 
in India is two hundred years old, in China 
about one hundred years old, in Japan it is 
about fifty. The fifth day of October, 1909, in 


42 Christ the Light of the World. 


Tokyo, they celebrated the fiftieth anniversary 
of missionary work in Japan. The first mis¬ 
sionary entered that little island empire in 1859. 
It was seven years before they had a single con¬ 
vert. Now there are 839 missionaries, 1,391 
Christian workers, 153 mission schools with 12,- 
588 students, 74,560 believers, and 199 self-sup¬ 
porting churches. Now, in regard to those self- 
supporting churches, I mean by “self-support” 
that they do not call on outside help. Some of 
the Japanese churches help others, but there are 
199 churches in Japan that support themselves. 
Most of these are independent entirely, but 
there are some that have to have help from 
other Japanese churches. The Japanese gave 
in one year 134,941 yen, equal to $67,470.50. In 
the same year there was given by the various 
missions 267,080 yen, equaling about $133,540— 
That is, for every dollar given by the various 
missions to the work in Japan, the Japanese 
people give over fifty cents. 

Now some general statements in regard to the 
work as a whole. I have here a little pamphlet, 
called “Around the World,” and below the title 
also is written: “A composite view of mission¬ 
ary enterprise as seen by sixty-six representa¬ 
tive business men.” These business men went 


Christ the Light of the World. 43 

out from America around the world and exam¬ 
ined for themselves what was being done by the 
various missions. It is interesting to read the 
whole pamphlet, but I will read only a short 
extract: “The results in the way of new con¬ 
verts and contributions of converts are most en¬ 
couraging. The number of new converts re¬ 
ceived into full membership last year was 164,- 
674, or an average of over 450 per day through 
the entire year. This is a far larger propor¬ 
tionate gain than we had in the United States. 
The membership at home increased last year 
one and one-half per cent, while the membership 
of the native Christian churches increased 
twelve per cent. For every ordained minister 
at home an average of two converts were added 
last year. For every ordained American mis¬ 
sionary abroad the average number of converts 
were forty-one. Even more striking was the 
gain in contributions in the various foreign mis¬ 
sion fields. They increased last year by $1,360,- 
000. The total gifts on the various foreign 
fields last year were $4,844,000. This is forty- 
eight per cent of the total amount contributed 
to this object by the Protestant churches of 
North America.” 

Summing up briefly, there are to-day scat- 


44 


Christ the Light of the World. 


tered throughout heathen lands some 22,000 
men and women who have gone out as mission¬ 
aries from Europe and America, The Bible has 
been translated into about 500 different living 
languages and dialects, and it has been printed 
to the extent of 350,000,000 copies and distrib¬ 
uted among heathen people. That does not in¬ 
clude the Bibles of Christian lands. There are 
to-day gathered out of heathenism some 2,000,- 
000 converts who have been won from idols to a 
belief in the true God. 

‘ 4 Well,” says one, “if there are 22,000 mis¬ 
sionaries already in heathen lands, and 350,000,- 
000 copies of the Bible already distributed, that 
ought to be enough.” Now I want to say to 
you, my dear friends, especially you young peo¬ 
ple, that if you had thought of going as a mis¬ 
sionary, and are now getting nervous lest all 
the work be accomplished before you get there, 
that if every Bible which had been given or dis¬ 
tributed had been given to a Chinaman, there 
would still be 50,000,000 of the Chinese without 
a Bible. There would be all Africa, with her 
175,000,000 people, and not a Bible; there would 
be India, with her 300,000,000 people, and not 
a Bible to give them; there would be Japan, with 
her 50,000,000 people, and not a single copy of 


Christ the Light of the World. 


45 


the Scriptures for them, to say nothing of all of 
those living in South America and Mexico. Do 
not get nervous, young friend; there will be 
plenty for you to do, even if you do not get into 
the mission field in twenty years from now. 
What has been done is only a drop in the bucket. 
There will be plenty of territory for you to oc¬ 
cupy when you reach the mission field. 

Some one has said: 

“ Behold the fall of ocean’s wall. 

Space mocked and time outrun, 

While round the world the thought of all 
Is as the thought of one.” 

Now we have already beheld the fall of ocean’s 
wall, space mocked and time outrun, and let us 
hope that the day is near when round the world 
the thought of all shall be as the thought of one, 
and the knowledge of the glory of the Lord 
shall fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. 


46 


Christ the Light of the World. 


THE NATURAL RELIGIONS OF JAPAN. 


Down in the State of Florida I was one day in 
the home of a friend, and while there my atten¬ 
tion was drawn to a picture hanging on the 
wall. The picture represented a little boy 
dressed for the night, kneeling down by the bed¬ 
side in the attitude of prayer. Also, just beside 
the little boy was his favorite dog kneeling 
down, with his head over on the bed, in the at¬ 
titude of prayer. Looking at these two ani¬ 
mals, the thought occurred to me that while out¬ 
wardly they seemed to be going through the 
same ceremony, yet the promptings of the one 
were very different from those of the other. 
Now the dog was going through that perform¬ 
ance, I doubt not, with the same feeling that a 
dog is taught to stand on its hind feet, or to lie 
down and roll over, or to jump through a hoop. 
It was a mere trick with the dog, because a dog 
has no religious nature. What is true of the 
dog is true of every animal on the face of the 
earth except one, and that is man. But wher- 



Christ the Light of the World. 


47 


ever you find man, you find a religious being; 
on the other hand, wherever you find a religious 
being, you find a human being. There is some¬ 
thing in his nature different from other animals 
that is capable of receiving religious teaching. 

Very properly, this map is gotten up with the 
idea of placing all of the nations under some 
form of religion, and this little island empire 
in the extreme east here, called the “Empire of 
Japan,” is no exception to the statement that 
all men are religious. The Japanese people are 
a very religious people. They claim to have 
eight hundred million gods, a great number—so 
many that they do not know how many. They 
have two main systems of religion. I do not re¬ 
fer to Confucianism, which hardly would be con¬ 
sidered a religion, it being more of a moral code 
than a religious code; but the two prevailing 
systems in Japan are known as “Shinto” and 
“Bukkyo,” or, putting the English ending to 
these words, “Shintoism” and “Buddhism.” 
The word “Shinto” literally means “the way 
of the gods,” or the “true way;” but when we 
come to examine into it, Shinto is simply the 
worship of the spirits of the dead. 


48 Christ the Light of the World. 

Shintoism. 

I have here on the table a symbol of Shinto 
worship. As yon see, this looks like a tomb¬ 
stone on which is written the name of the an¬ 
cestor, who is said to have lived about a hun¬ 
dred years ago. They have these little wooden 
tablets placed sometimes up in their homes on 
the god-shelf, called the “kami-dana,” or in 
the temple, and they go before them to worship, 
in this way doing homage to the spirits of the 
dead. 

This is one of the stubborn things that mis¬ 
sionaries have to deal with in turning the peo¬ 
ple away from darkness to light. The worship 
of the spirits of the dead has a strong hold on 
the nation. I remember very well that not long 
before I left Japan a young man had been at¬ 
tending our meetings pretty regularly for some 
time. After one of the services one Sunday 
evening T went back and sat down beside the 
young man, and in order to see what progress 
he was making in the Christian religion I began 
to ask him some questions. I said to him: ‘ ‘ You 
believe in God, I suppose, don’t you ? 9 y He said 
he did. “And you believe in Jesus Christ as 
the Savior of men?” He said he believed in 


Christ the Light of the World. 49 

Christ as the Savior of men. “And yon don’t 
worship idols any more, I suppose?” He said 
he did not. “Nor go to the graves of the dead 
to worship ?’ 9 There he hesitated. Finally he 
said, “Well, my parents go, and I am expected 
to go with them;” and he meant more by the 
word “expected” than is commonly meant by 
that word. He meant that he was almost com¬ 
pelled to go. It is one of those things that have 
become ingrained into the nature of the Jap¬ 
anese people. Having almost lost sight of the 
true and living God, they have turned aside to 
the worship of themselves, and you know as a 
man recedes in the distance and the further 
hack in the line of one’s ancestry he has hap¬ 
pened to he, the more sacred his memory be¬ 
comes. 

Buddhism. 

The other common form of religion in Japan 
is known as “Buddhism.” This is not native 
to Japan. The native home of Buddhism is In¬ 
dia. There was a prince who lived in India 
about six centuries before Christ. He is known 
in Western literature as “Gautama,” or 
“Prince Siddartha,” the former being his fam¬ 
ily name, and the latter his personal name. The 
Japanese people call him ‘ ‘ Shaka San, ’ ’ a name 
5 


50 


Christ the Light of the World. 


derived from the tribe to which he belonged. 
“San” means “Mr.”—Mr. Shaka. It was said 
of this prince that, seeing the corruptions of his 
people, he became very much concerned about 
them, gave up his right to the throne, went out 
into solitude and for a long, long time medi¬ 
tated and meditated and meditated until he 
thought he had found enlightenment; and, 
hence, you see in this image of him a ring back 
of his head indicating light, spiritual light, into 
which he claims to have entered. The word 
“Buddha,” while applied especially to the 
founder of this religion, may also be applied to 
any one who is fortunate enough to reach the 
state of Buddhahood. It stands to them some¬ 
what in the same sense as the word “immortal” 
does to us. The word “Buddha” means the 
“enlightened.” There are nearly as many ad¬ 
herents to the Buddhist faith to-day as all Prot¬ 
estantism put together; the former claims 147,- 
900,000 followers, while the Protestants number 
about 160,000,000. 

Now the nature of the Buddhist teaching is 

based on what they call “genin, kekkwa”_ 

cause and effect. According to Buddhist teach¬ 
ing, if one does well, he rises; if he does evil, he 
goes down. Of course, there is some truth in 


Christ the Light of the World. 


51 


that. We are not going to deny it as being true 
to some extent; but the weakness of Buddhism 
is that when one goes down, or gets down, there 
is no help. Buddhism is a sort of hopeless 
teaching, and those who follow the teachings of 
Buddha really face the future as a blank. 

I remember several years ago there was a 
Hindoo by the name of “ Dharmapala,’ ’ who 
came through Tokyo on his way to this country. 
Certain friends there invited him to give a lec¬ 
ture on Buddhism. Doubtless some of you have 
seen his name, for he attended the World’s Con¬ 
gress of Religions at Chicago in 1893 during the 
World’s Columbian Exposition, and is, perhaps, 
the greatest scholar in India to-day as a repre¬ 
sentative of Buddhism. After the lecture some 
one asked him how, according to the Buddhist 
teaching, we are to account for this world. His 
reply was that, according to Buddhist teaching, 
that was not a legitimate question. All that we 
know about this world, according to the doc¬ 
trines of Buddhism, he said, was that we do not 
know anything about it, nor need it concern us. 
Dharmapala is also credited with these lines: 


52 Christ the Light of the World. 

“ Through hirth and rebirth’s endless round 
I ran, and sought but never found 
Who formed and built this home of clay. 

What misery! birth for ay and ay.” 

The three points in Buddhism wherein it is 
defective are: First, there is no Creator; second, 
no Bedeemer; third, no resurrection. 

One of the most convenient words that is 
found in the Japanese language is the word 
‘‘shikataganai’’—“no help for it.” They are 
fatalistic. When things go well, they rejoice; 
when things go ill, they simply resign them¬ 
selves to their fate, and say: “No help for it.” 

Not a great while ago I received a letter from 
one of the young men in our dormitory, and in 
that letter he was telling of the various things 
that had happened round about in the commu¬ 
nity during the time I had been absent. Among 
other things, he said: “Do you remember the 
man that lived just across the street, on the 
corner—that young man and his wife who had 
not been married very long? Well, a very sad 
thing happened. In the middle of the night not 
long ago the wife of this man got up and went 
out and jumped into the well. Some said she 
was not quite right. Others said it was because 
some one had been talking about her, saying 


Christ the Light of the World. 


53 


things that they ought not to say, and in order 
to get out of the trouble and to vindicate her 
innocence she decided to go out and jump into 
the well.” 


The Two Religions Mixed. 

About the eighth century there was a famous 
man who flourished in Japan, known as “Kobo 
Daishi,” whose image is here in this little 
shrine. He was the inventor of the Japanese 
alphabet. It is said that he was bom miracu¬ 
lously and died sitting up. At any rate, he 
doubtless was a learned man for that time, 
and he succeeded in uniting the two religions 
to some extent. For when Buddhism entered 
Japan from Korea in the sixth century, it met 
with opposition, and for two or three centuries 
there was sharp contention between the two re¬ 
ligions; but Kobo Daishi said he had dis¬ 
covered that the spirits in Buddhism, which 
transmigrate, or pass from one body to another, 
and are reborn into this world an indefinite 
number of times, are the same as the spirits of 
their ancestors, and while the outward forms 
might be a little different, nevertheless, at 
bottom the two religions were practically the 
same. By and by the discussion between the 


54 


Christ the Light of the World. 


two systems of religion ceased, and to-day they 
are practically at peace. Yon may see a Shinto 
shrine and a Buddhist temple' located on the 
same grounds, and you may watch the people 
as they come and go, and you will see the same 
people worship at both the shrine and the tem¬ 
ple. 

But there is nothing of a very hopeful nature 
in these religions. They are the product of the 
imagination, and it is simply impossible for the 
human mind to imagine something higher than 
itself. 

There is a sort of folklore song in India which 
has been rendered into English, and runs some¬ 
thing like this: 

“ Haw many births are passed I cannot tell, 

How many yet to come I cannot say; 

But this I know, and know full well, 

That pain and grief embitter all the way.” 

Not very hopeful, is it? In departing from 
this world, Buddha could only say: “All alone 
we must go to the world of darkness, accom¬ 
panied only by our good and evil actions. ’ ’ Not 
very good company for most of us. But, ah, 
how different from the hope of the Christian— 
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the 


Christ the Light of the World. 


55 


shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou 
art with me . 9 9 

Some Idols Described. 

Here are also some other idols on the stand 
representing other of their gods. Not that this 
is anything like a full representation of the va¬ 
rious gods of Japan, either in variety or in size. 



DAI BUTSU AT KAMAKURA. 






























56 


Christ the Light of the World. 


Now, some of the largest images are some fifty 
or sixty feet in height. This one stands on the 
seashore down at a little village called ‘ ‘ Kama¬ 
kura,” and is about fifty feet high. There is 
another a little larger than this at a town called 
“Nana.” They are made of bronze. A long 
time ago a great sea wave broke the temple 
away and left the image at Kamakura out in 
the open air, and it has been standing thus ever 
since. Also, they have a great variety of im¬ 
ages in shape as well' as in size. 

Here is a little wooden image that was given 
me by the same priest that gave me this wooden 
tablet. He said it was the god of good luck, and 
that it was a thousand years old. Here is the 
god of wealth, Daikoku. He is one of a group 
of seven. They are a jolly set of gods, not very 
pious, and are not exactly worshiped in that 
sense that some others are. Still they like to 
have them around, because it will bring bless¬ 
ings some way. He has a great bag of gold on 
his back and a hammer in his right hand, and 
he also sits on two bags of rice. In ancient days 
a citizen of Japan reckoned his wealth in terms 
of so many rice bags, and a man was a wealthy 
man in proportion to the number of bags of rice 
that he owned. It is said that Daikoku has the 


Christ the Light of the World. 


57 


magic power of turning into gold everything he 
strikes with his hammer, and this is why he has 
such a broad smile on his face, because wealth 
is supposed to bring happiness. 

The Fox Temple. 

Here, also, is a little image, the goddess of 
mercy, known as “Kwannon.” She is espe¬ 
cially the woman ’s friend. There you notice also 
two little foxes. Now, I should apologize for 
these little animals, because all orthodox foxes 
ought to have tails, and these foxes, by rights, 
should have each a tail; but I have found that 
traveling does not agree very well with foxes, 
and as they have come some distance, both by 
land and sea, one of them has suffered the loss 
of his tail. If he had a tail, it would stand 
right up there about an inch high in a perpen¬ 
dicular position the same as the other one. 

Now it is strange that sensible people would 
worship a fox. Not very far from the capital 
of Japan, the great city of Tokyo, a city con¬ 
sisting of some two millions of people, there is 
a very famous temple, called the “Anamori 
Temple .’ 9 “Ana-mori” means “den keeper.” 
This temple is dedicated to the fox, and all sorts 
of contrivances may be seen about that temple 


58 


Christ the Light of the World. 


which are supposed to be pleasing to the fox. 
There is an artificial mountain as tall as this 
house and a great deal larger, costing several 
thousand dollars. On that mountain are little 
cedar forests and dens and cliffs and other 
places that the fox is supposed to he pleased 
with. There are, also, other places round about 
that mountain where the fox has his den, and 
everything about the temple generally is so pre¬ 
pared as to please the fox. 

I remember that, in March, 1909, two young 
men and myself went to see this temple. As 
we approached it, at one of these dens, made, of 
course, by human hands, and in which there 
never had been a fox doubtless, there was a 
woman kneeling down on the ground facing the 
fox den, with her hands, according to their cus¬ 
tom, clasped together and her head bowed; she 
was mumbling her prayer in the most earnest 
manner. When she left, she took a little sand 
from there, wrapped it up, and carried it home, 
and then scattered it about in front of her own 
home for good luck. 

They have, also, a superstitious practice of 
driving out evil spirits from the home at a cer¬ 
tain season of the year. Some member of the 
household will go around in the house scatter- 


Christ the Light of the World. 


59 


ing cooked beans and at the same time repeat¬ 
ing: “Oni wa soto, fukn wa uchi”—‘ ‘ Demons 
get out, blessings within.” We are inclined to 
smile at such performances, for indeed they do 
seem strange and foolish, and the people are 
full of them. 

Are We as Foolish as They? 

‘ 6 Well/’ says one, “I never have believed 
much in foreign missions, for it has always oc¬ 
curred to me that the heathen were beyond the 
reach of the gospel. Now I am just about con¬ 
vinced that if they worship such things as that 
and are as full of superstition as you say they 
are, that I was right in my conclusion, and I 
am afraid it is only a waste of time and means 
and men and women for the people of Christian 
lands to undertake to do anything for their en¬ 
lightenment.” 

I am frank to say, dear friends, that the wor¬ 
ship of objects like this is a very irrational 
thing. So far as I am able to discover, there 
is absolutely no good, hard common sense in it, 
and one is really tempted to conclude that peo¬ 
ple who have so little sense in regard to religion 
as to place such things as this before them, bow 
before them, and worship them as gods—I say 


60 Christ the Light of the World. 

people are tempted to say that they are beyond 
the reach of a sensible story. However, it is 
the duty of every man and every woman to 
think according to the facts, and to get all the 
facts possible. Of course, we are more or less 
influenced by our training, our national preju¬ 
dices, and according to the environment in 
which we are placed, but it is the duty of every 
man and woman to rise above anything that 
will turn aside his mind from getting at the 
facts. Now, while I admit that these people do 
act very irrationally in bowing down before im¬ 
ages of this sort, in being filled with supersti¬ 
tion, and in worshiping the spirits of the dead, 
yet, at the same time, let us not be hasty. It 
is a very serious thing to cast away, as being in 
a hopeless condition, more than half the popu¬ 
lation of the human race. 

Let us look on all sides of this question, or at 
least two sides, and that means let us look at it 
from an American point of view as well as a 
Japanese; and when we come to examine our¬ 
selves carefully, is it not also a fact that we are 
more or less wedded to the spirits of the dead! 
Right here in the city of Nashville not long ago 
there was a military rally, and during that rally 
the soldiers went out to the Hermitage and went 


Christ the Light of the World. 


61 


through a ceremony at the grave of Andrew 
Jackson, firing off the cannon. Why did they 
go to the grave of this hero and do such a thing? 
I do not suppose any one could give a clear-cut 
explanation, but there was something that 
prompted it connected with the spirits of the 
heroes of the past. 

Away down in Florida I attended a memorial 
service, common in all the States, I believe, and 
during that service prayer was offered, and in 
the prayer it was said: “We have met together 
here on this occasion to show our profoundest 
respect for the heroes of our country.” Right 
down here in Hickman County, where I was 
bom and reared, there was a proposition before 
one of the congregations to move the church 
building, and the very first objection against 
that move was that the graves of our ancestors 
would be neglected. The graveyard was there, 
and they preferred to inconvenience the living 
rather than forsake the graves of the dead. 

I am persuaded, dear friends, that were it not 
that we have been enlightened somewhat by the 
light that has come from above, we to-day would 
be doing exactly the same things that the Jap¬ 
anese people are doing across the sea. We 


62 


Christ the Light of the World. 


would be worshiping the spirits of the dead, and 
we do not miss it very far as it is. 

What about our superstitions ? ‘ * Well,’ 9 says 
one, “you needn't tell me that we are as full of 
superstition as those people are over there, who 
go around scattering beans to drive out demons, 
and things like that." We may not have ex¬ 
actly the same performances as they have, but, 
nevertheless, dear friends, I think that we have 
a plenty of superstition, even in America, to get 
along with. Did you ever hear of the man who 
would not plant his potatoes until the dark of 
the moon? Why? Because, according to the 
superstition of our own country, if a person 
plants his potatoes on the light of the moon, 
they will all go to vine. One of my brothers the 
other day when I was visiting him brought in 
a potato vine and put his foot on one end and 
held up the other, and it went up at least a foot 
above his head; then we measured it with a tape 
line, and it was six feet and five inches long. 
He said he planted this potato patch on the dark 
of the moon. He had another patch planted on 
the light of the moon that went no more to vine, 
but made just as good potatoes as these. This 
year it seems that most people have struck the 
dark of the moon, because it is a great potato 


Christ the Light of the World. 63 

year. The fact is, you do not plant your pota¬ 
toes in the moon. I know of a friend of mine, 
also, who will not kill his hogs until the dark 
of the moon, and a year or two ago he let sev¬ 
eral seasons go by and almost failed to get to 
kill his hogs because he did not want to kill 
them on the light of the moon. I was in con¬ 
versation with a friend a while hack, and he 
told me there was certainly something in the 
light-of-the-moon theory. He said he knew a 
certain tree that was cut down and made into 
boards on the same day, and part of these 
boards were nailed on the roof in the light of 
the moon and the rest were nailed on in the 
dark of the moon, and you could tell just to the 
row where they were nailed on in the light of 
the moon, because they all turned up at the end. 
How many of us want to see the new moon 
through the brush? You do not want to see it 
through the brush, do you? There are some 
people in America who, if a rabbit should hap¬ 
pen to cross the road in front of them, will actu¬ 
ally turn around and go back home. And what 
about that practice of carrying an Irish potato 
in the pocket to keep off rheumatism? Some 
one was making a speech out in California, and 
he said to the audience: “If there is a Ken- 


64 


Christ the Light of the Worid. 


tuckian in the audience, I venture to say he has 
a buckeye in his pocket. ’ ’ I went into the home 
of a friend in California, and as we reached the 
threshold I saw on the steps five horseshoes 
tacked up all in a row, and I said: “Brother, 
what do you have all those horseshoes tacked 
up there for?” And he said: “Good luck.” 
Here is the Japanese god of good luck [holds 
it up to view]; a little different in form, but the 
nature of it is exactly the same. Up in Ken¬ 
tucky I met a brother, and he said: “My mother 
always keeps flint rock in the fire to keep the 
hawks from catching the chickens. ’ ’ Some peo¬ 
ple will not sweep the house at night, lest they 
sweep their riches away. Never under any cir¬ 
cumstances must you sweep under the bed of a 
sick person. You start out from home and get 
a few rods away, when you find you forgot some¬ 
thing. You cannot go on without it, for you 
must have it, and you cannot turn back, for it 
is bad luck; so there you are. The only way out 
of the predicament is to make a cross on the 
ground and spit in it; then it is all right. And 
I might go on and spend the whole hour telling 
you of these superstitious practices that we 
have in America that have just as much ration¬ 
ality back of them as the superstitions of the 


Christ the Light of the World. 65 

Japanese people—just as much, and not one bit 
more. The fact is, after we come carefully to 
examine into our own practices and ideas, we 
have a great deal more of superstition than, per¬ 
haps, we are willing to admit. 

“Well,” says one, “we may have some super¬ 
stitions, and we may have more respect for the 
spirits of the dead sometimes than for the liv¬ 
ing, but you need not tell me that we worship 
idols. We are a civilized people; we do not 
worship things like that.” It may strike you 
with some surprise if I tell you that there are 
twelve million of the American people, some of 
whom are our own neighbors and associates, 
who are idolaters, and yet it is a fact. Go with 
me, right here in the city of Nashville, to some 
of the finest church buildings in it, when the 
people go to worship, and let us stand there in 
one of those magnificent buildings and watch 
the people as they came and go. You will ob¬ 
serve that at the entrance they come to the holy 
water, and dipping their finger in it they make 
the sign of the cross. And you will see inside 
of these buildings various kinds of images—St. 
Thomas, and St. Peter, and St. Paul, and St. 
Bartholomew, and St. Andrew, and a great many 
other saints standing around in the niches of 
6 


66 


Christ the Light of the World. 


the walls of this church building; and if you 
will notice the people, you will notice that they 
go and worship before the images of the saints. 
Not only so, hut they worship the image of the 
mother of Jesus and even of Jesus himself. It 
does not change the nature of the case to say 
that this is called “ Christianity. ’ ’ In its na¬ 
ture it is just as essentially the worship of idols 
as the worship of these various idols and im¬ 
ages of the Japanese people across the sea. It 
is just as pleasing in God’s sight to make an 
image of Kwannon, the goddess of mercy, and 
worship before it as to make an image of the 
Virgin and worship before that; and it is just as 
essentially idolatry to make an image of our 
Lord and how before it as to make one of 
Buddha and bow before that. 

The Lesson of it All. 

Now what is the point in all this? The point 
I make is that we are very much the same as 
they, the difference being that we ought to know 
better. We have had a much better opportu¬ 
nity than they have. We do not go to the full 
extent that they do, hut, nevertheless, we have 
enough respect for the dead, enough supersti¬ 
tion and idolatry, to identify us very closely 


Christ the Light of the World. 67 

with our neighbors across the sea; and instead 
of these things being an evidence that these peo¬ 
ple are separated from the rest of the race, they 
rather go to show that we are all very much 
alike, and to serve rather as so many links con¬ 
necting the whole human race together as one. 
Now if we, with our enlightenment and our 
good common sense, are compassed about by 
these foolish ideas and practices, and yet the 
Bible has had power to lift us up, is it not rea¬ 
sonable to suppose that the people across the 
sea who practice things of a similar nature could 
also he reached with the same sensible story? 
I say this is reasonable. 

What Makes a Heathen? 

I remember just across the street from where 
we used to live there was an old man with his 
family, who lived in a little Japanese house. 
Every morning that old man would go out to 
the well that stood near by his door, and with 
a bucket, to which was attached a bamboo rod, 
he would draw a bucket of water, pour it out 
into the little basin, wash his hands and face, 
dry them with a little towel; and when he had 
gone through this part of the morning service, 
he would turn and face eastward, clap his hands 


68 


Christ the Light of the World. 


three times, bow his head, and pray to the rising 
snn. There are a great many snn worshipers 
in Japan. 

Once there was an old woman going through 
the same performance in the city of Tokyo, and 
a student passing by said: ‘ ‘ Grandmother, what 
are you doing V 9 She said: “Don’t you know 
the sun rises every morning, gives us light and 
warmth and blesses us in many ways, and is it 
not proper for us to give thanks to him 1 ’ Now, 
that old woman was partly correct. That feel¬ 
ing of gratitude for the light of the morning 
was not an improper feeling, but it was directed 
toward the wrong object. It was something 
like if I should borrow a lantern from you on a 
dark night, and, the next morning, returning 
the lantern, instead of turning to you and say¬ 
ing, “Thank you, my dear friend, for the lan¬ 
tern,” I should hold up the lantern and say: 
“Well, Mr. Lantern, I am much obliged for the 
light you gave me . 9 9 That would not be a very 
sensible thing to do. You would think I was 
joking or something was wrong somewhere. 

Now these millions of people in pagan lands 
have lost sight of the great Lantern Giver, and, 
not knowing any better and still feeling that 


Christ the Light of the World. 


69 


prompting of gratitude, they turn and thank 
God’s great lantern. 

Suppose some one should go to that old man 
with this little Testament—a Japanese Testa¬ 
ment—and say to him: ‘ ‘ I see you worship every 
morning. That is all right. I think that is a 
good thing to do; but I want to read to you a 
little from this book. This is a book that is 
from God. I want to read to you something 
about him.” You would turn to 2 Cor. 5 or the 
first chapter of the Gospel of John, and you 
would begin and read: “In the beginning was 
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
Word was God.” “Hajime ni Kotoba ari, Ko¬ 
toba wa Kami to tomoni ari, Kotoba wa suna- 
wachi Kami nari.” You would then begin 
and explain to the old man about that word 
“Kami,” the word for “God” in the Japanese 
New Testament. You would say to him: “Now 
this Kami that this book teaches about is not 
the kami that you worship every morning, the 
sun that rises yonder; but the Kami which I 
speak of is more like that mysterious power 
within you, the mysterious something we call 
1 spirit/ which causes the whole body to move 
and to have life. This Kami is the maker of 
all things and the author of life.” Little by 


70 


Christ the Light of the World. 


little get the old man’s attention, and he will 
begin to think about it, and by and by he ac¬ 
cepts it, maybe, as many of them have done. 
The next morning the old man goes out to the 
same well, and, with his bucket and bamboo rod 
attached, he draws water from the well, pours it 
into the basin and washes his hands and face, 
dries them with the little towel, and, just as he 
has been accustomed to do, except he does not 
turn to the sun, he stands and lifts up his hands 
with gratitude to the one great God who made 
the heavens and the earth. Now, I say, get the 
old man to that point, and no longer would he 
be a pagan. He would be worshiping God in 
the beauty of holiness. Why, it is the proper 
thing for all men to give thanks to God, and I 
would that all people professing to be Chris¬ 
tians would not neglect this most important and 
helpful duty of beginning the day with thanks¬ 
giving and prayer. 

My children have been taught by their mother 
a little thanksgiving prayer in verse, the first of 
which runs like this : 

“ Father, we thank thee for the night 
And for the pleasant morning light, 

For rest and food and loving care, 

And all that makes the day so dear.” 


Christ the Light of the World. 


71 


Then it is not the feeling of thanksgiving in 
the hearts of those heathen people that makes 
them seem so irrational, but it is the object to¬ 
ward which these religions practices are di¬ 
rected. 

There is a little animal in this country known 
as the “beaver.” Now the habit of the heaver 
is to build dams across the streams. That little 
animal will go on the bank of the stream, cut 
down trees of considerable size, cut them into 
lengths, and drag these sections of the trees 
across the stream, and with mud will build a 
dam; and when you see it, you say: “It is won¬ 
derful.’ ? But they tell me you may take that 
same little animal and put it in a dry room, and 
when the time comes and that mysterious some¬ 
thing we call “instinct” prompts the animal, 
it will hustle around and gather up sticks and 
rubbish and paper and anything else it may find 
and drag them across the dry room, making its 
dam; and as you see it doing that you say: “Old 
fellow, I take it all back; you haven’t as much 
sense as I thought you had.” Yet the beaver 
in the dry room is just as wise as the beaver in 
the pond, the difference being that in the one 
place he is out of his element; in the other, he 
is just where God wants him. Now, we are all 


72 


Christ the Light of the World. 


very much like the beaver. Place man where 
God designed him to be, and he fulfills God’s 
purpose in him, and thus glorifies God. Let 
him get out of that proper place where God in¬ 
tends him to be, then he is like the beaver; there 
is something in him that prompts him to pour 
out his soul in some religious way, hut it is just 
about as sensible as the beaver building his dam 
in the dry room. 

The Nature of the Missionary’s Work. 

In our work among the heathen there should 
be no attempt to destroy their religious feelings 
and promptings, but, rather, we should do just 
as Paul did at Lystra,, when he and Silas sprang 
in among the multitude and said: “Sirs, why 
do ye these things? We also are men of like 
passions with you, and bring you good tidings, 
that ye should turn from these vain things unto 
a, living God, who made the heaven and the 
earth and the sea, and all that in them is.” 
This is also the nature of our work among the 
heathen. Were it not for this religious nature 
in mankind, our work would be impossible. It 
would be like trying to teach the ox to sing or 
the dog to pray. 

Now, I have shown, I think, that there is no 


Christ the Light of the World. 73 

very great difference between the different sec¬ 
tions of the human race—not so much as a great 
many of us are inclined to suppose. When we 
come to look at the matter just as it is, we find 
that our observation of human nature and its 
tendencies and practices leads us to the same 
conclusion that we are led to when we open 
God’s book. Peter said: 4 ‘Of a truth I perceive 
that God is no respecter of persons: but in every 
nation he that feareth him, and worketh right¬ 
eousness, is acceptable to him. ’ ’ 

Then there must be an obligation on the part 
of those who have the light to take it to those 
who have it not. 0, let us not allow our little 
national prejudices and our contracted views 
of the great commission, nor our own personal 
feelings, nor anything else, to come in between 
us and a full service in being used of God for the 
enlightenment of the nations. 


74 


Christ the Light of the World. 


THE TEMPLES OF JAPAN. 


Wherever you find man, you find him with his 
sacred places, and you find him going there to 
worship. Paul said concerning those people in 
Athens, “I perceive that ye are very religious,’’ 
or demon-fearing, or, as it is rendered again, 
“somewhat superstitious.’ ’ . It seems that the 
translators had some difficulty with that word, 
and did not know just how to render it. I am 
inclined to think that the word Paul used in¬ 
cluded all three ideas—that they were religious, 
demon-fearing, superstitious. However that 
may he, it is a fact that people who worship 
false gods and have superstition mixed with 
their religion are filled with these three ideas. 
They are afraid of demons, they are very relh 
gious in a manner, and in all they are full ot 
superstition. 

A Comparison of Figures. 

In Japan there are more than 288,000 shrines 
and temples, or a temple for every 170 people. 



Christ the Light of the World. 


75 


This is the latest authentic report. There are 
1,675 Protestant church buildings, or a place of 
Christian worship for every 29,552 people. 
There are 216,000 priests that serve in these 
temples, or a priest for every 229 people. As 
to Christian workers, there are 1,391, or one 
Christian worker to every 35,000 people. This 
includes the native workers, about 500 in num¬ 
ber; but if we include the missionaries alone, 
there is only one missionary for every 61,000 
people; or, if we refer to our own work alone, 
we have one missionary from the churches of 
Christ in America for about every 7,000,000 
people. 

In the city of Tokyo alone there are 150,000 
shrines and temples. Many of these are very 
small, insignificant places; but, nevertheless, 
they are sacred places where the people go to 
worship. The government has ordered 50,000 
to he destroyed, as being unnecessary. Before 
this there were 200,000 sacred places of worship 
in the city of Tokyo alone. As to places of 
Christian worship, we have 150, or, at present, 
one place of Christian worship for every 1,000 
places of heathen worship. Many of the tem¬ 
ples in Japan are very expensive; and in a coun¬ 
try poverty-stricken like Japan, one wonders 


76 


Christ the Light of the World. 


how they ever got together enough money to 
build such temples. Their temples far exceed 
their dwellings, on an average, in regard to 
splendor and expense. 

How the Temples are Sustained. 

I have in mind just at this time a temple 
which was built the year I went to Japan. It 
stands almost opposite a Christian place of wor- 
ship. When the time came to build this tem¬ 
ple, I was one day passing in that part of the 
city, and I saw in the street a number of young 
women nicely dressed up in their ‘ ‘ Sunday 
clothes,’’ as we would call it, with their white 
tabi on (a kind of stocking that comes up to the 
ankle), and yet these young women were draw¬ 
ing the carts on which were the timbers for that 
temple, and the street was muddy. It was such 
a striking instance of the unfitness of things, it 
seemed to me—young women dressed up in their 
best clothes going through the muddy streets 
drawing the carts—that I asked what it meant, 
and they said that the timbers were for the tem¬ 
ple, and this was a sign of their devotion to their 
religion. 

These temples are sustained largely by the 
freewill offerings of the people. Of course, in 


Christ the Light of the World. 


77 


special emergencies, they will take up subscrip¬ 
tions, but usually the offerings that sustain 
these temples are freewill offerings. 

On almost any day you may pass around any 
of the cities of Japan, one of the most familiar 
sights will be the priests. They have on a sort 
of yellow surplice, and they go around from 
house to house with a howl, and have a little 
bell. They ring the little hell and mumble a 
sort of prayer that they do not understand nor 
any one else understands; but the people take 
this as meaning something about religion, and 
they are all accustomed to go out to the door 
and drop in a little offering—maybe it will not 
he as much as a penny. That is one way. 

Another way is for the people to go to the 
temples and worship, and, when they go, take 
an offering. They do not assemble in great au¬ 
diences, as a rule; sometimes this is the case; 
but usually they go one by one, and each wor¬ 
ships by himself. Whenever a person goes to 
the temple to worship, he is always sure to take 
with him an offering. Some of the contribution 
boxes in these temples are ten, fifteen, or possi¬ 
bly twenty feet long. They come together in¬ 
side “V” shape, and there is a slit between the 
planks. They throw in their little gift, and 


78 Christ the Light of the World. 

down it goes into the contribution box. After 
they have done this, they kneel and pray. 

San-ju-San Gendo. 

In the city of Kyoto there is a temple called 
the ‘ ‘ San-ju-San Gendo. ’ ’ In this temple there 
are 33,333 images of the goddess Kwannon. It 
is dedicated to this particular deity, the goddess 
of mercy. Besides a great many smaller ones, 
there are 33 principal temples erected to her 
honor. 

Fudo. 

There is also another very famous temple in 
Japan called “Fudo,” named after the god it 
contains. I have a very vivid recollection of 
the first visit I ever made to this temple. I 
went in company with a student. We got off 
at a little station, then walked through the vil¬ 
lage and along the way leading down to the 
temple. Here my mind was attracted to some 
jimson weeds that were growing by the road¬ 
side—just common jimson. Now, you know 
when a person is in a strange land, he is always 
looking out for something that has to do with 
home; though we pay no attention to it in our 
own land, in a distant country like that you are 
sure to notice everything that resembles any- 



































































A BUDDHIST TEMPLE 











Christ the Light of the World. 


79 


thing at home. Here I noticed a bunch of jim¬ 
son, and it looked so familiar that I stopped 
and looked at it and examined it to make sure 
that it was jimson. I rolled a leaf in my fingers 
and smelled it and convinced myself that it was 
genuine jimson, and felt like I had almost met 
an old friend. We went on across the valley 
and through the gate, and finally came to a flight 
of steps that led up to the temple; but as we 
came to the gate, the main entrance, there were 
two objects of interest, one on either side. 

Now, a temple gate is quite a large structure ; 
one would almost take it to be the temple itself. 
On either side there were some large images— 
images of men, giants, monsters—standing, 
each facing toward the entrance, some two or 
three times as large as life size. They were 
called the “gate keepers,” or the Ni-O, “the 
two kings.” Those who go to the temple al¬ 
ways pay their respects to Ni-O. They some¬ 
times hang up a pair of street sandals by the 
images, thus showing their gratitude that they 
have been permitted to make a successful pil¬ 
grimage to the temple. Also, you may see lit¬ 
tle paper wads sticking against the wire netting 
that shields these two great gate keepers. 
Those little wads of paper represent prayers. 


80 


Christ the Light of the World. 


They write a prayer on a piece of paper and 
roll it np and chew it and then throw it; if it 
sticks on the netting, this is evidence that the 
prayer is heard. 

We went np the flight of steps and came to 
the temple proper. The temples of Japan are 
built mostly of large posts. In many instances 
the walls are movable, but the temples are sus¬ 
tained on very heavy timbers in the shape of 
posts. Around this particular temple there is 
an open porch some nine feet wide. We walked 
around back of the temple, and there we found 
dug in the hill a tunnel, or hole. At the en¬ 
trance was a gate. The gate was locked. We 
went up and looked through the doors, and 
away back at the end of that hole there burned 
a dim candle. Now this was the abode of one 
of the deities that lived at the temple. One of 
the things that impressed me most was the pray¬ 
ing of two women. They were side by side 
walking around on the porch of the temple. 
One of them had a bundle of cords, or strings, 
in her hand, about a foot long, I judge. There 
were just one hundred cords, and I noticed that 
every time she went around she would take one 
and lav it over in front. Every step they were 
making they were repeating prayers. 


Christ the Light of the World. 


81 


There are two main forms of prayer in Japan. 
The one they were repeating was the shorter one 
—Namu-amida-butsu. They were keeping step 
just as regularly as two soldiers and praying 
to the time. Now it was very important that 
they go around on this porch of the temple one 
hundred times in order for their prayers to be 
effectual. Hence that kind of prayer is called 
the “ hundred-times-go-round prayer ,’’ or the 
‘ ‘ hyaku-do-maeri. ’ ’ This is one of the most 
flourishing temples in all Japan. The people 
visit it regularly every month; and when the 
time comes to visit the temple, it is a very pros¬ 
perous time with the little railroad that runs 
by where it is located. 

“Well,” one may ask, “what do they pray 
for?” They pray according to the circum¬ 
stances to some degree, or it depends on the con¬ 
dition a person is in. It may be that some mem¬ 
ber of the family is sick, the mother or the fa¬ 
ther, or brother or sister, and they go and pray 
for the sick person. It may be that there is 
some calamity that has befallen the family or 
some friend. It may be that the rain has not 
come in a long time, so they pray for rain. And 
they think that their prayers will be effectual, 
not by the variety in speech, but by the frequent 
7 


Christ the Light of the World. 


repetition of the same thing. Now these two 
women to which I refer had just the one little 
prayer, Namu-amida-butsu, which, in English, 
means, The great and immortal Buddha, That 
is all they said. 

I have often been reminded of that circum¬ 
stance which took place at Ephesus when Paul 
stirred up the shrine makers there, and they 
all came out, not knowing what they had come 
out for. At any rate, they knew that Diana 
was a great goddess, and for two whole hours 
they cried out: “Great is Diana of the Ephe¬ 
sians.’’ Now the very same idea seems to pre¬ 
vail in the minds of the heathen to-day. If Je¬ 
sus were standing in the midst of the idolaters 
of our time and should witness just what is go¬ 
ing on now, he could not more accurately de¬ 
scribe the prayers of the heathen than he did 
when he said: “But when ye pray, use not vain 
repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think 
that they shall he heard for their much speak¬ 
ing.” What was true in his day is true now. 
The people of Japan will repeat prayers for 
hours at a time, and what is true of Japan is 
true of other pagan nations. 


Christ the Light of the World. 


83 


Suitengu. 

In the city of Tokyo there is another very 
famous temple called the ‘‘ Suitengu. ’’ We 
have a very good system of electric cars in 
Tokyo now, and one line runs right around in 
front of this temple. One of the stopping places 
is here. Our custom in Japan is a little differ¬ 
ent from what it is in America, because the con¬ 
ductor will always call out the stations—that is, 
the stopping places along the street. Here each 
one must usually look out for himself. I remem¬ 
ber very well hearing the conductor call out this 
particular stopping place many a time. It is 
called “Suitengu-mai, ,, and means “Before 
Suitengu.’ ’ 

A long time ago there was war in the impe¬ 
rial household. There were two aspirants to 
the throne, and one party contended for one 
prince and one for the other; but they could not 
settle it, so they decided to fight it out. The 
battle took place at sea, and the infant prince 
that was one of the aspirants to the throne was 
in the possession of the mother. It went hard 
with this side of the house, and the mother 
jumped into the sea with her babe and they were 
drowned. He has since been deified, and hence 


84 Christ the Light of the World. 

the name Suitengu, the water nymph. There 
is one principal temple in Japan erected to his 
honor, and a branch temple, the one in Tokyo. 
This is especially a temple of the student class, 
because they believe that the spirit of the de¬ 
parted prince will assist them in their educa¬ 
tion. It is said that in one year this temple 
took in 10,000 yen, or $5,000, all of which was 
gained by these little freewill offerings the peo¬ 
ple brought when they came to worship. This 
has constituted a fund, and that fund is used to 
assist poor students in getting an education. 
So even in idolatry we sometimes find good re¬ 
sults. 

Kishimojin. 

Just a few steps from where our school is lo¬ 
cated there is another very famous temple, dedi¬ 
cated to a female god, called “Kishimojin.” 
Now, Kishimojin is a cannibal. It is said that 
a long time ago she had a great family, a fam¬ 
ily of one thousand children, and she fed her 
children on the infants of the mothers of Japan, 
causing great weeping and lamentation. Bud¬ 
dha, it is said, being merciful, wanted to break 
up this bad habit, so he stole one of the children. 
She was greatly troubled over the loss of one 
child', so he finally restored it, and said: “Now 


Christ the Light of the World. 


85 


you realize how greatly you are troubled over 
the loss of one, then think how much trouble 
you have caused by taking so many thousand 
children from their mothers. You must stop 
this awful practice.’ ’ Having forbidden her to 
take children any more to feed her family on, 
he pointed her, so the story goes, to a pomegran¬ 
ate tree, and said: “Now the fruit of this tree 
will serve instead of the fare you have been 
giving them.” Ever since that she has been 
feeding her children on pomegranates. I am 
not responsible for the truthfulness of this story. 
Nevertheless, the fact remains that near our 
school there is a temple dedicated to Kishimo- 
jin, and thousands of people go to this temple 
to worship every year. They have their annual 
festival. The last they had was a great one, be¬ 
cause last year was a very prosperous year in 
Japan, and they had the largest rice crop they 
had raised for a long time. In order to show 
their gratitude, they had a great festival at the 
temples, and Kishimojin had a great festival at 
her temple. Brother Klingman wrote me in re¬ 
gard to it, and said that during the week of the 
festival the students could not possibly study 
of evenings on account of the noise. They did 
not try, but would get up at four o’clock in the 


86 Christ the Light of the World. 

morning and study their lessons. Now, the 
young people and old alike come out and join 
in the festival. This particular sect is called 
the “Hokekyo” sect. Their form of worship 
is a little different from the others. Their 
prayer is a different prayer from the one I 
have mentioned. They repeat the longer form. 
That longer form is like this: Namuyoho-ren- 
gekyo. During this festival you can hear the 
procession that comes round about the temple, 
marching up one street and down the other, all 
the time heating their little drums and crying 
out every once in a while in chorus: “Namu- 
yoho-rengekyo. ’’ I asked a priest once what 
that meant, and he said: “The law and the lotus 
plant.” But even in English I do not know 
just what it means. The fact is, they do not un¬ 
derstand much about the significance of the 
prayers they pray; and when we come down to 
the real meaning, there is not much to under¬ 
stand. It is something like trying to explain 
the good luck of a horseshoe or something like 
that. 

We can see from the worship at this temple 
how idolatry has an evil effect on the people. 
David says: 6 ‘ They that make them shall be like 
unto them.” (Ps. 115: 8.) Now, here are peo- 


Christ the Light of the World. 87 

pie around this particular temple worshiping a 
monster, a cannibal; so we cannot expect their 
character to be of the highest, or their ideals 
the most exalted, while the god whom they wor¬ 
ship is of such a nature as that. 

There is another god in Japan that is a thief, 
and he is honored as a thief. The people go 
to worship this god also. He is called “Jizo.” 
Whenever people worship gods that are thieves 
and cannibals, or that are represented by the 
cunning of the fox, you cannot expect them to 
be of the highest character, because people be¬ 
come like what they worship. You may select 
some person that is your ideal, your model. 
You admire that man, and, inadvertently, you 
are following him to some extent. Now, to the 
very extent that you follow that man you ad¬ 
mire, whether he be a good man or a bad man, 
you are becoming like him. When the James 
brothers, those outlaws, flourished in our land, 
and their story was written and the youth read 
the story, we had a great many Jesse Jameses 
throughout the country trying to do just like 
their ideal. 


88 


Christ the Light of the World. 


Asakusa. 

There is another very famous temple in the 
city of Tokyo known as the Asakusa Temple. 
Perhaps more people go to this temple than any 
other in all Japan, As you enter the temple 
grounds through the great gate, with the two 
gate keepers that I referred to in regard to the 
other temple, on the right hand is a sort of re¬ 
volving library. Sometimes when students go 
to the temple in order to get an education cheap 
and quickly, they go out there and turn the 
library round a time or two, supposing that to 
be a means of helping them become wise. 

I remember once about ten years ago, just be¬ 
fore we came home the first time, I went out to 
the temple and took my oldest little girl. She 
was then six years old. We went up into the 
temple. Any one can go inside the temples of 
Japan—that is, to a certain point. They usu¬ 
ally have two apartments, somewhat like Solo¬ 
mon’s temple. They have what might be called 
a ‘ ‘holy place” and a ‘ 4 most holy place.’’ Any 
one can go into the holy place. I remember 
we went out to that temple one day. There 
were people coming and going and bringing 
their offerings and saying prayers. Just over 


Christ the Light of the World. 89 

there on one side was the god of health. He 
sat on a stand about as tall as a common table, 
and was about two-thirds life size—a little black 
image, where the people went to get cured. 
While we were standing there, a mother came 
up with a little baby in her arms. She went 
over to that motley thing and rubbed its face— 
where its face used to be—and then rubbed her 
own face, and then rubbed it again and rubbed 
the child. They have rubbed that image so 
much that they have actually rubbed every bit 
of its face away, and it is just as flat as a board. 
Now, instead of being a means of curing disease, 
you can readily see how a practice like this is 
one of the most fruitful means of spreading it, 
for all kinds of diseased hands come on that 
motley idol, and it is no wonder that eye dis¬ 
ease is one of the most prevalent complaints in 
all Japan. When we came home, our little girl 
ran to her mother and said: “Well, I am a 
woman, but I must be a preacher.” The rea¬ 
son why she said this was, when she saw the 
people going up and rubbing that image, she 
knew enough of what was right and what was 
not right to have her little heart stirred within 
her, and she determined when she got grown 
she would be a “preacher” and teach these peo- 


90 


Christ the Light of the World. 


pie the better way. And I do hope and pray 
that not only my oldest daughter may be a 
preacher in the scriptural sense, but that all 
three of my children, when the time comes, will 
be found in Japan proclaiming unto that per¬ 
ishing people the way of light and salvation. 
Some one says: “Why, do you really want your 
children to go back to Japan ? ’ ’ I can conceive 
of nothing that would be more profitable to 
them or give more pleasure to me than to go to 
Japan and engage in just such work as we are 
engaged in now. I know of no nobler calling 
on the face of the earth. 

Umewa-jinja and Ushijima-jinja. 

Across from this temple, beyond the river 
Sumida, there are two others. One is called 
“Umewa-jinja;” the other, “Ushijima-jinja.” 
It is said that a long time ago there lived in the 
country a certain mother and her son, and a 
man came along and kidnapped the son. He 
came to the city of Tokyo; and when he reached 
the river, he forsook the child and left the little 
fellow there to perish. The mother went out in 
search of the child, and she, also, came as far 
as the river Sumida searching for the little one, 
and found him not. No one gave her any at- 


Christ the Light of the World. 


91 


tention, and she, too, perished. After they were 
dead the people got mighty sorry, and said they 
onght to erect some temples in honor of these 
good people, and they built one in honor of the 
son and another in honor of the mother. Now, 
T do not stand responsible for the truthfulness 
of this story; hut, nevertheless, there stand the 
two temples to-day. But whether or not the 
story is true, it illustrates a very important fact 
in regard to human nature, and that is that it is 
very much the same in this one particular— 
namely: While people are living, we are apt to 
neglect them; after they are dead, we are very 
sorry. It was true in the days of our Lord. He 
said to the Pharisees: You say if you had been 
living in the days of your fathers, you would 
not have done as others did. Others stoned the 
prophets, and now you build their tombs. As 
much as to say you would not have acted like 
they did, and yet you are just like your ances¬ 
tors. You are ready to kill those in your midst 
that are as good as the prophets. We neglect 
the living and then pay our respects to the dead. 
Many a man has left his wife without the com¬ 
mon comforts of life, has neglected to speak a 
word of comfort or kindness to her, and after 
she was laid in the coffin has shed tears, paid 


92 Christ the Light of the World. 

for the flowers to put on the coffin and has 
placed them on the grave, and shown consider¬ 
able respect for the remains of that poor woman 
that he ought to have been loving twenty years 
ago. At any rate, they built the two temples 
dedicated to the son and the mother. In 1906 
they had their annual festival around these 
temples. 

Now, before I go any further with the story, 
I want to bring up another one connected with 
it. One of the gods of Japan is called “Mi- 
koshi. ’ ’ It seems that a long time ago this god 
was one of three children, two brothers and a 
sister. One of the brothers and the sister were 
very quiet, genteel people, but this particular 
brother was rough and rude. Once his sister 
was having a feast with her friends, and he 
found a dead horse and threw it on the roof. 
The carcass came down in the midst of the little 
company, and his sister got angry and went and 
hid herself in a cave. When she did that, the 
earth became dark. The brother thought he 
must hit upon some plan in order to get his sis¬ 
ter out again, so that it might be light. He went 
and got some dogs in the neighborhood and 
some old roosters and brought them to the 
mouth of the cave, and built some bonfires, and 


Christ the Light of the World. 


93 


got the dogs to barking and the roosters to 
crowing, and (as the women all have the curi¬ 
osity) the sister in the cave wanted to know 
what that was going on out there, so she came 
and peeped out just a little to see, and while 
she was peeping out her brother seized her and 
brought her out and tied a rope across the cave 
so she could not get back again; and it has been 
light ever since. I do not vouch for the truth¬ 
fulness of this story, but, at any rate, every year 
the people will put up over the top of their door 
a large straw rope made of rice straw, celebra¬ 
ting that event. Now this brother is one of the 
gods of Japan, and on certain occasions he is 
brought out on a framework of two parallel 
beams running one way and two more at right 
angles to these, and he sits right in the center 
where they cross. Under these beams that are 
some fifteen or twenty feet long there will be 
fifteen, twenty, or thirty young men and boys 
(the muddier the streets, the better), and as 
they go through the streets they give a yell that 
can be understood only when heard. 

Now, as to the story of 1906, there was around 
these two temples, Umewa-jinja and Ushijima- 
jinja, a festival, and, according to their custom, 
they went around to every house in this particu- 


94 


Christ the Light of the World. 


lar part of the city, asking each one for a do¬ 
nation to bear the expenses, and they came to 
a certain man and asked how much he was go¬ 
ing to give for the festival. He said he could 
not give anything, because he had become a 
Christian. Well, it was not long till, away up 
yonder in the stall where Mikoshi was sitting, 
there was assembled a company of the rude 
boys and young men of the neighborhood. Mi¬ 
koshi came out on their shoulders and took out 
down the street, and he came right into the very 
shop that the Christian owned (he was a crock¬ 
ery merchant), and broke right in with those 
great, heavy beams and smashed up his wares. 
By and by the policemen got him out, and no¬ 
body was particularly responsible, because the 
idol did the damage, and that settled it. But 
they were not contented with this. The next 
night a great mob came out around that fellow’s 
house and stuck fire to it and burned it up, all 
because lie refused to give for an idolatrous fes¬ 
tival. I am sometimes asked by friends whq 
are a little skeptical as to whether or not a con¬ 
vert will stick, and I tell this story to answer 
that question. This man stuck. Whether, like 
those of ancient times, he took joyfully the 
spoiling of his goods or not, one thing is certain: 


Christ the Light of the World. 


95 


he saw his house and possessions go up in flames 
and maintained his Christian integrity. 

Anamori. 

Referring again to that fox temple I men¬ 
tioned last night, the Anamori temple, when the 
two young men and myself were standing there 
watching the proceedings that were going on 
about that temple, we saw a woman as she was 
bowing down to one of the fox dens saying her 
prayers. Those young men were as much 
stirred at the sight as I, for, while they were 
Japanese, they said they had never seen any¬ 
thing just like that before. One of them was 
not a believer in the proper sense. He was a 
believer in God, but he did not believe in the 
Bible. Nevertheless, he had long since given 
up idols. The other was a very devout believer. 
He had not gone to the full in obedience, hut he 
was a very pious young man, steady and trust¬ 
worthy. Just as regularly as he ate his meals 
did he read his little Testament, and just as 
regularly as he read his Testament he prayed. 
As we were returning home that evening (for 
he seemed still to be thinking about that partic¬ 
ular incident of seeing the woman), he said: 
“ There are all over this land of ours many 


96 Christ the Light of the World. 

towns of ten thousand people and under where 
there is not a single Christian believer nor any 
work whatever being done. When you go back 
to America, I want you to tell the American peo¬ 
ple about this, and ask them to send us more 
workers. ’’ Thus we have given to that song a 
new meaning—the song that says: 

“ There’s a wail from the islands of the sea, 

There’s a voice that is calling you and me.” 

Now, mission songs are all well enough if they 
lead us to action; but without it, friends, it is 
not sufficient for us to sing missions. We must 
suit the action to the song, and in order to be 
pleasing to him who said, “Go ye into all the 
world, and preach the gospel to the whole cre¬ 
ation, ” we must be just as willing to go as we 
are to sing the song that says go, we must be 
just as willing to heed the call from across the 
seas as to sing the song concerning the “wail” 
that we hear. 

Ame-No-Naka-Nushi-No O-Mi-Kami. 

It seems that in all nations there has ever 
been the conception of the true God. In the 
Vedas, or sacred writings of India, they have 
Dyaus-Pitar, the Heaven Father. From this 


Christ the Light of the World. 


97 


they descended to Brah, or pantheism, the dei¬ 
fication of all nature. Brahmanism and the an¬ 
cient religions of Greece and Rome appear to be 
derived from the same source. The Egyptians 
held the unity of God. They had the expres¬ 
sion, “Nuk Pu Nuk ”—“I am that I am”—the 
very name by which Jehovah made himself 
known to Moses. Their sacred manuscripts 
say: ‘ 1 He is the one living and true God, . . . 

who made all things and was not himself made.’ ’ 
Persia believed in Ormazd, the one God of 
Zoroaster; the savages of North America be¬ 
lieve in the Great Spirit; China holds to Shotei, 
the Supreme Ruler; and Japan, with her mul¬ 
titude of gods and goddesses, still holds to 
Ame-No-Naka-Nushi-No O-Mi-Kami, the Lord 
in the midst of heaven, the great God. Right 
in sight of our school at Tokyo is a shrine dedi¬ 
cated to him, and it was my privilege to be 
present at the dedication. It was one beauti¬ 
ful Sunday afternoon. I happened to be pass¬ 
ing by in one of my rounds for distributing 
tracts. Seeing something special going on, I 
stopped at the gate and asked what it was. 
‘ ‘ O-Matsuri,’ ’ they said—‘ ‘ a festival. ’ ’ “ What 
god is this that you are dedicating the shrine 
to?” I asked, and they said: “Ame-No-Naka- 
8 


98 


Christ the Light of the World. 


Nushi-No O-Mi-Kami.’’ I continued by telling 
them that I had read something of that God in 
their literature and I worshiped him myself, and 
that I had some tracts about him on the True and 
the Living God. Giving out some of the tracts, I 
pointed to the sun still shining in an afternoon 
sky, and continued: “Do you see the sun up 
there? Now, I am an American and live many 
thousand miles across the sea, almost on the 
other side of the world; but that same sun that 
shines on us also shines on the people of Amer¬ 
ica in the same way. He shines on every na¬ 
tion in the world, and is not the exclusive sun 
of any. Even so Ame-No-Naka-Nushi-No O-Mi- 
Kami is the God of all nations alike, and not 
just of Japan. ’ ’ With these remarks, I walked 
on, glad of the opportunity of taking part in the 
dedication of at least one heathen temple in 
Japan. 

It is pitiable and truly pathetic to see earth’s 
teeming millions groping their way in the dark¬ 
ness of despair! 0, that God would stir our 
souls to the depths, that we might be led to 
see the responsibility that God has laid upon us. 
We who have the light should feel that it is a 
very serious thing to hold back the truth in un¬ 
righteousness. Can we rest contented while 


Christ the Light of the World. 


99 


more than half the population of the world, con¬ 
sisting of more than eight hundred million peo¬ 
ple, is in heathen darkness, not so much as once 
having heard of a Savior? Can we feel that we 
are carrying out God’s purpose, beloved friends, 
so long as we neglect great multitudes who are 
passing out without hope and without God? It 
is said that at least one hundred thousand souls 
perish daily. “Well,” says one, “it seems to 
me there is no way to get at it; it is a great 
undertaking.” I do not believe the undertak¬ 
ing is too great to be accomplished. The very 
fact that Jesus Christ has given the command 
carries with it the obligation, and the obligation 
means the possibility of it. There- is not a fa¬ 
ther that has common wisdom and loves his 
children who would say to his little ten-year-old 
boy: “My son, you go yonder and lift that bar¬ 
rel of salt and put it in the smokehouse.” He 
would not say that in all seriousness, because 
the father knows that a ten-year-old boy can¬ 
not lift a barrel of salt. And yet a great many 
of our Father’s children are acting as though 
he commanded them to do as impossible a task 
as lifting a barrel of salt. We stand back and 
look at this great command of God that he has 
given through his Son to the world, and say: 


100 Christ the Light of the World. 


“It cannot be done; we are doing all we can do 
here at home, and that is beyond our ability.” 
Ah, there is some mistake somewhere! God 
has not commanded his children to undertake 
impossible tasks. Jesus is too wise to command 
such a thing, and I am sure he is too good to do 
it. Let us then consider it seriously, let us un¬ 
dertake it in all earnestness; for just so sure as 
this command has been given to God’s people 
can it be fulfilled, and it ought to be to-day that 
every man and woman on all the face of the 
earth should have an opportunity of hearing the 
message of life, so that if they remain heathen 
it may be from choice and not from necessity. 


Christ the Light of the World. 101 


THE GOSPEL IN JAPAN IN THE LAST 
FIFTY YEARS. 


Every man should avoid putting himself in a 
position which will commit him to that which 
he cannot conscientiously approve. We are en¬ 
deavoring to keep the churches in Japan as free 
from denominationalism as possible. It is the 
duty, however, of every one to accept the truth 
wherever and with whomsoever he finds it. In 
speaking of what has been done by the various 
denominational missions during the last fifty 
years in Japan, I would not be understood as 
indorsing all that they do, but there is much ac¬ 
complished by them which we all can approve. 
I believe God is using every man as far as that 
man is willing to be used. How many are will¬ 
ing to be used to the saving of the soul is im¬ 
possible to decide; this applies to us as well as 
to others. We may obey where others fail and 
fail where others obey. It stands us all in hand 
to give heed to the things which we have heard, 
lest at any time we drift away from them. We 
may be up to the standard in regard to how to 



102 Christ the Light of the World. 

become a Christian; but many of ns, I fear, are 
sadly lacking in regard to how to live a Chris¬ 
tian. 

Deeds of Heroism. 

I read a very touching story concerning a cer¬ 
tain young woman, Miss Mary Read, who, in 
1884, became a missionary to India. Her na¬ 
tive State was Ohio. After a period of years 
on the mission field, she returned in 1891 to 
Cincinnati, broken down in health, and entered 
Christ’s Hospital. For some time she had dis¬ 
covered on the tip end of her right forefinger 
a vexing little sore that no manner of persua¬ 
sion would induce to heal. Lying in bed one 
day thinking, and tapping her forefinger on the 
counterpane to ease the dull pain, the thought 
came to her: Maybe this is leprosy. When the 
doctor came, she mentioned it to him. He said 
that he was not well enough acquainted with 
leprosy to know whether it was or not, that he 
would have to read up a little. He read up 
when he went home; and when he came back, 
he said that he was afraid it was all too true. 
She went to an expert in the city of New York 
who had had some experience with leprous cases 
there, and he only confirmed the decision of the 
first doctor—an undoubted case of leprosy. 


Christ the Light of the World. 103 

When Mary Read learned that she had that 
dreaded disease, she wrote a letter to her poor 
old mother, saying that for certain important 
reasons she had decided to return to India im¬ 
mediately. But before returning to India she 
went to see her mother; and when she met her, 
she stated that she had made a vow that she 
would never again kiss another person, not even 
her mother. The mother, thinking she had 
some religious sentiment connected with it, 
asked no questions. After she had spent a 
short while with her mother, she bade her a 
final, affectionate good-by, without even the lux¬ 
ury of a kiss, and turned her face again to the 
great heathen land of India. She went up 
among the Himalaya Mountains, in one of the 
worst districts of all India for leprosy, and 
there established a hospital for that unfortunate 
class. She is there to-day contented with her 
lot. There may be some points in the life of 
this woman that we could criticise, but we can¬ 
not criticise her heroism and consecration. 

Also, in the year 1832, there was a man, Mel¬ 
ville Cox, who was sent to Liberia, in West 
Africa, Before leaving America he said to a 
special companion of his: “If I die in Africa, 
you must come over and write my epitaph.’’ 


104 Christ the Light of the World. 


The friend said: “I will; but what shall I 
write?” “Write on my tombstone: ‘Let a 
thousand fall before Africa is given up.’ ” 

In three months that man was in his grave; 
but others caught the inspiration, and the work 
has been pushed from that day until the pres¬ 
ent, and as the result of the pioneer effort of 
this hero there are to-day in connection with 
this particular work about three thousand be¬ 
lievers. Now, we may criticise this man, per¬ 
haps, in some points, but we cannot criticise his 
devotion. Especially should we be slow to do 
this till we are more willing to go with a fuller 
message. The gospel mixed with some error is 
better than none. 

To what extent God will hold us responsible 
for neglecting the first part of the commission, 
I do not know; but, so far as I can see, there is 
just as much importance attached to that part 
of it which says, “ Go ye into all the world, and 
preach the gospel to the whole creation/ ’ as 
the latter part, which says, “He that believeth 
and is baptized shall be saved / 9 and be it ob¬ 
served that the requirement to go comes first. 


Christ the Light of the World. 105 


Beginnings in Japan. 

Now, I am glad to say that there are scores, 
and even thousands, of men and women who 
have risen up in various parts of Europe and 
America during these latter days, and have 
said: ‘ ‘ Here am I; send me. ’ ’ We can find them 
scattered throughout all the pagan lands of the 
earth—not less than twenty-two thousand men 
and women. 

Speaking more particularly of the little East¬ 
ern island empire of Japan, just fifty years ago 
last October the first Protestant missionaries 
entered that land. When they reached the 
shores of Japan, they met a hostile people that 
did not want to receive them. The government 
had at that early time prohibited two things en¬ 
tering the country—one was opium, the other 
was Christianity. I am glad to say that J apan, 
in regard to the first, has kept her purpose, and 
unto this day it is next to impossible to intro¬ 
duce that evil drug into the empire of Japan, 
the drug that has so greatly cursed China. 
But Japan has the good sense to know the dif¬ 
ference between things that really differ, and 
she was not very long in discovering that there 
was a difference between opium and the 


106 Christ the Light of the World. 


Christian religion. She relaxed her opposition 
against Christianity and allowed people more 
freedom. Bnt in those early days the govern¬ 
ment had posted up in public places what are 
commonly known as “edicts.’’ These edicts 
against Christianity read like this: ‘ ‘ So long as 
the sun shall warm the earth, let no Christian 
he so hold as to come to Japan; and let all know 
that the king of Spain himself, or the Chris¬ 
tian’s god [supposed to refer to the pope of 
Rome], or the great God of all, if he violate this 
command, shall pay for it with his head.’ 9 
Missionaries when they first entered Japan 
were not allowed to teach Christianity publicly, 
nor even privately, except under the most care¬ 
ful and suspicious watching. However, they 
were not discouraged. They had trust in the 
power of God’s word that by and by it would 
make a way for itself. All this time they were 
quietly working away at the Japanese language; 
and it required over twelve years of slavish, 
hard study before they were prepared to begin 
a translation. In the year 1872 a translating 
committee began work on the New Testament. 
After eight years’ work it was completed, and 
it is worthy of note that the very next year 
after they began work on the translation of the 


Christ the Light of the World. 107 

New Testament those edicts to which I have re^ 
ferred were taken down by government author¬ 
ity, and taken down forever. After the New 
Testament was completed they took up the work 
of translating the Old Testament; this required 
eight years more. They completed it in the 
year 1888—sixteen years’ hard work in order to 
get the Bible to the people in their own lan¬ 
guage. If the twelve years of preparation are 
added, you see we have twenty-eight years of 
tedious labor in order to give the word of Grod 
to the Japanese people. 

You ask me if it helps any for those who are 
laboring under the various denominations to 
go to a heathen land and teach their doctrines. 
Take this one consideration. Suppose, for in¬ 
stance, that when others and myself went to 
Japan there had been no translation of the 
Scriptures and we should have had to go 
through all this. In the first place, this is not 
the work of one man; it is the work of a com¬ 
pany of men. Suppose that we should have had 
to begin at the bottom and study the language 
and then translate the Scriptures. There would 
yet be ten years’ work for us before the Jap¬ 
anese people could even have the Bible. As it 
was, when we went to Japan eighteen years ago, 


108 Christ the Light of the World. 

this little book, a Japanese New Testament, was 
already prepared, just as it is now. Not only 
so, but the entire Bible was nicely bound up, 
having been translated into the Japanese lan¬ 
guage. So when we get to feeling right critical 
against our denominational neighbors in regard 
to their errors, it will do us good, my beloved 
friends, to think a second time. There is not 
a Bible that has been placed on this stand, nor 
in any church in this city, nor on the pulpit of 
any of the churches of Christ in Tennessee or 
throughout the United States, but what is the 
work of the sects. We ought not to be too 
sharp against our neighbors, at least not to the 
point of forgetting the good that they do. 

This translation is to the Japanese people 
what the King James Version is to us. It is 
the recognized standard, and is used through¬ 
out Japan like the King James in America. It 
has its defects, and there has been serious 
thought about revising it; but, nevertheless, 
with all its defects, it is God's word and has 
the power to uplift and to give light to the soul. 

Long before the New Testament had been 
completed the Bible had filtered into Japan in 
one way or another, and in various remarkable 
ways was having its fruit. To give one illustra- 


Christ the Light of the World. 109 


tion: Away down at the south of Japan, at the 
port of Nagasaki, there was a Japanese, “Wak- 
asa” by name, who was one day out in his boat, 
and he saw something that looked like a hook 
floating on the water. Out of curiosity, per¬ 
haps, he picked it up, opened it, and discovered 
that it was a Dutch New Testament. He could 
not read Dutch; and as he could not find a trans¬ 
lation of this book in his own country, and 
becoming keenly interested in it, he sent all 
the way over to China to get a Chinese trans¬ 
lation, for missionary work by this time had 
been going on fifty years in China. Although 
the Chinese and Japanese cannot talk with one 
another, the scholars of either country can read 
the literature of the other. So he sent and got 
a Chinese Testament. He read it and was con¬ 
verted—turned away from heathenism. I do 
not know whether he was baptized or not. It 
may be that he received a substitute; hut rather 
than be inclined to criticise those who did it, I 
think that we ought to feel a sting of conscience 
that some of us were not there to teach him the 
way more perfectly. 


110 Christ the Light of the World. 

Christian Influence in High Places. 

Now, the giving of the Bible to the Japanese 
people in their own language marks an epoch 
in Japan. It was the beginning of a new order 
of things. It set the people to thinking along 
new lines; it set the people to acting on differ¬ 
ent principles. For a long time after I went to 
Japan their conduct was a puzzle, and I have 
sometimes been so uncharitable as to say that 
Japan had no moral standard. It seemed so 
to me; but I found by and by that I was mis¬ 
taken, that the people did have a moral stand¬ 
ard, but the trouble with me was that it was not 
the Christian standard. What they thought 
to be right was from a Bible point of view for¬ 
bidden, and what we consider to be forbidden 
they would accept as a privilege. But when 
the Bible began to have an influence among the 
people, their ideas of what was right and what 
was wrong began to change; and it had its in¬ 
fluence, not on the common people alone, but 
on all classes in Japan. Now, in Japan things 
work from the top downward. The rapid ad¬ 
vancement, the marvelous progress that Japan 
has made during the last half century, began at 
the top and worked downward. The govern- 


Christ the Light of the World. Ill 


ment has always been in the lead, and it had 
to lead the people and sometimes force them 
into measures. The Christian religion has had 
its influence even with the throne. Shortly 
after the war with Russia, the Emperor of Ja¬ 
pan, so pleased with the work done by Chris¬ 
tian workers, and seeing that Christianity was 
a power for good among his people, volun¬ 
teered to give ten thousand yen ($5,000) to 
Christian work. Not only so, but in the House 
of Commons, consisting of three hundred and 
eighty members, there are to-day fourteen of 
the three hundred and eighty who are Chris- , 
tian believers. The late Prince Ito, the great¬ 
est statesman that Japan has ever had, for a 
long time stood out against the Christian reli¬ 
gion and said that he had no use for Chris¬ 
tianity, that all religion was mere superstition. 
It is a little like this: Japanese nature is human 
nature. If you understand human nature, you 
understand Japanese nature; and you know it is 
human nature for a person who is uprooted in 
his own faith to say: “Now, mine was as good 
as anybody else’s, and I don’t believe in any 
of it.” That is the way some of the Japanese 
people feel about it. By force of circumstances 
light from the West entered in among them, and 


112 Christ the Light of the World. 


the Japanese people were forced to give up their 
false gods. They concede it is a superstition— 
they have to acknowledge that; hut, being a 
proud people like they are, they say that the re¬ 
ligion of the West is no better than theirs, hut 
it is all superstition. That is the position that 
Prince Ito took; but here is what was said con¬ 
cerning him shortly before he was assassinated: 
“ Twenty years ago he publicly announced that 
he had no use for any form of religion, that 
Buddhism and all religions were only so many 
divers forms of superstition. At the dedication 
of the Young Men’s Christian Association build¬ 
ing in Soul he said he had always believed that 
morality was essential to a national life, and 
that he now believed that religion was essential 
as an adequate basis for morality.” 

Perhaps the greatest living statesman to-day 
in Japan is Count Okuma. He is, also, perhaps, 
the greatest philanthropist in Japan. It is 
through his instrumentality that the University 
of Waseda, one of the largest schools of Japan, 
has been established. In lecturing to the stu¬ 
dents of the school on one occasion, he gave ut¬ 
terance to the following language: “It is a ques¬ 
tion whether we have not lost moral fiber as the 
result of the many new influences which we 


Christ the Light of the World. 113 


have been subjected to. The development has 
been intellectual, and not moral. The efforts 
which Christians are making to supply the coun¬ 
try a high standard of conduct are welcomed 
by all right-thinking people. As you read the 
Bible, you may think it is inadequate, out of 
date. The words it contains may so appear, 
but the noble life which it holds up to admira¬ 
tion is something that will never be out of date, 
however much the world may progress. Live 
and preach this life, and you will supply the 
country with just what it needs at this junc¬ 
ture. ’ ’ 

Remarkable words coming from a man whom 
we would consider a heathen, and it is pecul¬ 
iarly interesting to know how the Bible im¬ 
presses itself upon a man who comes to it as a 
new book. Now, you and I, dear friends, have 
been brought up on the Bible. I learned my 
letters from the New Testament, and I never 
had the shadow of a doubt from the time that I 
could believe anything hut what the Bible was 
true. My mother said so, and that settled it. 
But it is interesting for us to place ourselves 
in the position of a man who comes to the Book 
as a stranger, and opens it as a brand-new book, 
and looks at it, not from any feeling of preju- 

9 


114 Christ the Light of the World. 

dice or from any traditions that have come 
down to him from his fathers, hut looks at it 
simply as a hook and reads it for just what it 
is worth; and here is the impression it has made 
upon such a man, and he could set a pretty good 
example for those who think they are wiser than 
He who gave the Bible. Now, you know some 
people in this country are getting a little wiser 
than the Bible. They are saying it is out of 
date; yet over across the sea yonder the great¬ 
est living statesman in Japan says the noble life 
it holds up for our admiration will never be out 
of date, however much the world may progress. 

Last year, you know, there was a delegation 
of business men who came over to the United 
States from Japan, among them being the rich¬ 
est man in Japan, Baron Shihusawa. The busi¬ 
ness men in New York City gave them a ban¬ 
quet, and during that dinner Shihusawa gave 
utterance to the following words: “Japan in the 
future must base her morality on religion. It 
must be a religion that does not rest on empty 
or superstitious faith, like that of some of the 
Buddhist sects in our land, hut must be like the 
one that prevails in your own country, which 
manifests its power over men by filling them 


Christ the Light of the World. 115 


with good works/ ’ (Missionary Review of the 
World, July, 1910.) 

Now, these examples will serve to illustrate 
how the Bible has influenced those in the very 
highest positions in Japan, from the emperor 
down. 


Change of Customs and Morals. 

This is not all. As already suggested, the 
Bible has set the people to thinking and acting 
along new lines. Now, for instance, old Japan 
puts woman down in a subordinate place, and 
says: “You are the inferior, I am the master; 
you help me on with my clothes, and you stay 
behind. I go in the street car first; you carry 
the baby and come after. If there is one seat, 
you stand up and I sit down.” That is what 
old Japan says to woman. I remember seeing 
old Japan very well illustrated. They were 
having an O-matsuri, or festival, at the place 
where the spirits of the heroes are enshrined, 
and a great many people had come up from the 
country to attend this three-days ’ celebration. 
Among them was a young man who had been 
a soldier and who had come up to the capital 
with his uniform on. They were walking along 
the street, he and his wife, and she had a little 


116 Christ the Light of the World. 

baby and a bundle in her arms, and was walk¬ 
ing just a little behind the master. He was 
walking in front, and had nothing whatever 
save a little fan. He was gravely walking 
along fanning himself, while his wife carried the 
bundle and the baby. That was old Japan. It 
is not that way in new Japan. Things are 
changing. I have seen new Japan get up and 
give the mother a seat in the street car. I have 
seen new Japan take the baby and let the 
mother go free, and I have seen new Japan treat 
his wife as an equal and as a companion. New 
Japan says the girls should be educated and 
taught to have high ideals in life the same as 
the boys. Just across the street from our work 
at Zoshigaya is one of the largest schools in Ja¬ 
pan, consisting of over fifteen hundred students, 
and this is a school for girls—the Woman’s Uni¬ 
versity. 

The Christian religion has changed and is 
changing the customs of Japan along other 
lines. During the New-Year holidays, for ex¬ 
ample, it is the custom of the young people to 
play shuttlecock and battledoor by knocking 
back and forth with light paddles a little gum 
ball with feathers stuck in it. This is one time 
when Confucius, who taught that girls and boys 


Christ the Light of the World. 117 


should separate at six and should no more asso¬ 
ciate in common, is disobeyed and the girls and 
hoys play together. Old Japan said every time 
one lets the shuttlecock fall to the ground, that 
one must receive a broad black streak of ink 
across the face. I have seen an unskilled player 
with his face (or hers) almost solid with black 
streaks. Now such a punishment on the de¬ 
feated party is prohibited by the police on the 
ground that it is displeasing to foreigners, be¬ 
ing considered of low taste. In ancient times 
the jinrikisha man ran the streets with his cart, 
almost nude. Now it is the rule that every 
one shall be clothed. I have seen a policeman 
suddenly stop a man as he flew along the road 
with his little man-cart for no other reason than 
that he had his shirt stripped off down to his 
waist. In ancient times the public baths were 
used in common by both sexes. When I first 
went to Japan, I witnessed this. Now the law 
requires every bath house to have two distinct 
and separate apartments—one for men and one 
for women. At first they separated the pool 
only by a straw rope stretched across the mid¬ 
dle; but as their ideas of propriety grew, the 
bona-fide partition took the place of the straw 
rope. 


118 Christ the Light of the World. 


These things show how Christianity has made 
itself felt even down to minor matters. I be¬ 
lieve it can be truly said that there is not a 
man, woman, or child in Japan to-day hut who 
is in some way or other touched and benefited 
by the blessings of the gospel. Many of them, 
and likely most of them, do not know whence 
these blessings came, yet, though it be in igno¬ 
rance, they are reaping their benefits. 

Japan has erected a different moral standard 
to-day from what she had years ago. Perhaps 
I cannot do better just here than to give the 
testimony of another prominent Japanese, who 
is distinguished as an educator in Japan and 
who is also a Christian believer. He says: 

“In the policy followed in recent years by the 
government in matters of diplomacy and poli¬ 
tics, in times both of war and peace, the spirit of 
Christianity can be recognized. Old-fashioned 
Japan is apparently indifferent toward Chris¬ 
tianity, if not opposed to it, but in fact she is 
reaping its fruits. As far as diplomacy and 
politics are concerned, Japan may rightly be 
called an ‘ anomalous Christian , 7 or an un¬ 
baptized Christian country. This transforma¬ 
tion has been wrought through Christianity, 
but under the name of ‘modern civilization.’ 


Christ the Light of the World. 119 


In adopting Western civilization, Japan is 
really adopting Christian principles and ideals. 
Foreign missionaries brought ns the gospel di¬ 
rectly; Western civilization propagated Chris¬ 
tian principles indirectly. This indirect influ¬ 
ence has spread wide its branches over all the 
land; this direct influence lias sunk deep its 
roots into the nation’s heart. The life-giving 
and life-sustaining sap will flow from the roots 
into the branches, vivifying and strengthening 
them. There will then be nothing anomalous; 
Japan will be Christian. 

“Let us state it concretely: 

“1. The guarantee by the Japanese Consti¬ 
tution of the freedom of faith is the most Chris¬ 
tian principle that can be adopted by the State. 
The declaration of such freedom is far more 
Christian in principle than to make Christianity 
the State religion. To force a religion by the 
power of State is as bad as to prohibit and pre¬ 
vent it. In Japan, Christianity can act freely 
and can grow freely—a free church in a free 
State! 

“2. The Japan of to-day better understands 
the true meaning of Christianity. In former 
times love and affection were found among rel¬ 
atives, friends, and families, but not outside of 


120 Christ the Light of the World. 


them. People looked upon society around them 
as an enemy. Still more did they have this at¬ 
titude toward foreigners. The old proverb that 
every one you meet is a thief will illustrate the 
attitude of old Japanese toward one another. 
To love your neighbor is the spirit of these lat¬ 
ter days. The relief work in time of famine, 
earthquake, and other disasters; the rescue 
work for exprisoners and fallen women; the 
caring for defectives and delinquents; the ac¬ 
tivities of the Red Cross Society in war; the con¬ 
sideration shown to the Russian prisoners in the 
late war, and such things, are all the embodi¬ 
ment of Christ’s teachings, ‘Love your neigh¬ 
bor, ’ ‘ Love your enemies. ’ 

“3. The value of the individual life is an¬ 
other expression of the Christian spirit through 
Western civilization. Formerly suicide was 
considered to be an honorable act; now it is re¬ 
garded as a sin. The State law then encour¬ 
aged it; the State law now forbids it. If Japan 
were not in touch with Christian civilization, it 
would still be to the Japanese an honorable 
method of ending one’s life. 

“4. Japanese have begun to admit the equal¬ 
ity of all men. Before the present era the peo¬ 
ple of the Eta class [originally slaves imported 


Christ the Light of the World. 121 


from Korea] were looked down upon as being 
beyond the pale of decency, as beneath the low¬ 
est class of society. But now they are allowed 
to rank among the common people. They are 
not distinguishable from others in outward ap¬ 
pearance, and in point of knowledge they show 
no inferiority. The distinction between the 
Heimin (common people) and the Shizoku (gen¬ 
try) nominally exists, but in reality there is 
none. Between nobility and common people 
there still exists a certain feeling of distinction, 
but it is not much greater than that found in 
certain European countries. 

4 4 5. The ideas of the worth and place of 
woman have been changed. ‘Women and chil¬ 
dren are creatures unteachable, ’ says an old 
Japanese proverb. Now to women are given 
the same privileges and respect which they en¬ 
joy in Christendom. Most of our organized 
charities are in their hands. In institutions of 
lower and middle grade for the education of 
women they make efficient teachers. Both pub¬ 
lic and private professions are gradually being 
opened to them. They enjoy greater freedom 
than their sisters of any other country of the 
East. 

4 ‘ 6. The idea of justice has also been changed. 


122 Christ the Light of the World. 


The old idea was, ‘ An eye for an eye, and a tooth 
for a tooth . 9 Vengeance was considered quite 
moral. In order to attain this object, all sorts 
of means were resorted to. In the stories of 
old morality, revenge forms the central topic. 
Now the idea is changed. Not only does the 
law forbid it, but people have begun to see the 
folly of it. 

“ Western civilization has brought to Japan 
the ethical fruit of Christianity, while the Chris¬ 
tian propagandists have given us the seed and 
the stem. The time will come when the people 
will realize the fact that there are not two dif¬ 
ferent vines, but one and the same vine, of 
which our Father is the husbandman.’ 7 (Saku- 

noshin Motoda, in the Christian Movement for 
1909.) 

These statements, coming from a Japanese, 
are full of thrilling interest. 

Has Enriched the Literature. 

The Christian religion has also imprinted it¬ 
self upon the literature of Japan. There is not 
a child at school in that land to-day who is not 
reaping the fruits of Christianity. It is the in¬ 
fluence of the Bible that has established the 
present system of public schools in Japan. Pre- 


Christ the Light of the World. 123 

vious to modern missions no snch system ex¬ 
isted. The text-books in these schools show 
manifest marks of Christian thought. Every 
child who recites a lesson imbibes now and then 
a thought from the Bible. It is said that the 
Bible itself is more widely read there to-day 
than any other hook, unless it is such of the 
Chinese classics as have been incorporated into 
the text-books of the government schools. 
Many of the words and expressions of the Scrip¬ 
tures are becoming familiar to the Japanese 
public. Old words also have taken on new 
meaning. For example, such words as “reli¬ 
gion,” “salvation,” “devotion,” “blessing,” 
and “God” (Kami). Take, also, such expres¬ 
sions as these: “Gospel of peace;” “Glory to 
God in the highest, and on earth peace, good 
will toward men;” “the widow’s mite;” “a 
grain of mustard seed;” “a house built upon 
the sand;” “the glory of Solomon;” “the poor 
in spirit;” “the gospel of the kingdom of 
heaven;” “Except ye become as little chil¬ 
dren;” “Man shall not live by bread alone;” 
“new wine in old bottles;” “I in them, and 
thou in me, that they may be made perfect in 
one;” “Our Father which art in heaven. . . . 
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and 


124 Christ the Light of the World. 

the glory, forever.” (See the Christian Move¬ 
ment in Japan for 1909.) Such quotations and 
references as these are found in the daily news¬ 
papers, weekly and monthly periodicals, and 
the general literature. As one Japanese writer 
is reported as saying: ‘‘Most of the noted lit¬ 
erary men of Japan appear to write with the 
Bible at their elbow. ’’ 

Influence on the Home. 

The influence of Christianity is manifest in 
the home life of Japan. In all non-Cliristian 
countries the law of marriage has been greatly 
disregarded. This breaks up the home, and the 
home is the unit of human society. The two 
pillars on which rests the home are the father 
and mother, the husband and wife. Without 
these two pillars there can be no proper home. 
The family relations in Japan are greatly con¬ 
fused. Polygamy, divorce and remarriage, and 
the unlawful mingling of the sexes in various 
ways have been common, and have wrought 
great confusion. This has greatly destroyed 
filial and parental affection and tlie dignity and 
sacredness of the home. The Christian religion 
is doing much to correct these evils. That 
which was once looked upon as honorable and 


Christ the Light of the World. 125 


concerning which no effort was made at con¬ 
cealment has now fallen into disrepute. Even 
the heathen custom of the marriage ceremony 
is being abandoned for the Christian ceremony. 
This change has been brought about, perhaps, 
more through the example of the missionaries 
than the direct teachings of the Scriptures. 
Whatever else may be said in criticism of the 
missionaries, they have, as a rule, set a good ex¬ 
ample in the home life. In the missionary’s 
home the native sees the husband giving honor 
unto the wife as the weaker and more delicate 
vessel; she is treated as a companion, not as a 
subordinate, and there are no other mysterious 
women around, about which too many questions 
need not he asked. All of his children have 
the proper parentage and are clearly defined. 
They all wear the father’s name. As the peo¬ 
ple go in and out in their visits to the mission¬ 
ary’s home, they are not slow to observe these 
things and to note that there is a difference be¬ 
tween the home life of the foreigner and that 
of themselves, and the average man can he ap¬ 
pealed to for better things. One of the hopeful 
signs of the times in Japan to-day is the restora¬ 
tion of the home. This word “home,” by the 
way, is another one of those words into which 


126 Christ the Light of the World. 

a new meaning had to be injected, for there was 
no corresponding Japanese word that meant 
what the word means to us. Their word for 
“home” was rather vague and indefinite, re¬ 
ferring more to a tribe than a clearly defined 
family with only one father and one mother, 
with the children all in proper order and dis¬ 
tinctly located. 


Results. 

Speaking more definitely as to results, there 
are at present 153 mission schools, with 12,588 
students in attendance; about 100,000 children 
in the Sunday schools and some 8,000 in the 
kindergarten; and nearly 75,000 converts who 
have been won from idolatry unto the accept¬ 
ance of the one true God and of Jesus Christ 
whom he has sent. Out of a total of about 400, 
there are 199 churches that are self-supporting. 
Their faith is more or less defective, it is true, 
and their obedience imperfect, but this is not 
through any fault of their own; they have ac¬ 
cepted what has been taught them. They 
would have accepted the purer, fuller teaching 
with less denominational mixture, if the proper 
teachers had been there to give it to them. If 
you and I have clearer conceptions of truth than 


Christ the Light of the World. 127 

our religious neighbors, rather than criticise 
what they have done in heathen lands, we should 
feel convicted that we have not gone and done a 
better work. Japan, like other heathen nations, 
has been pleading and struggling all these years 
for an unsectarian New Testament religion, 
and, in spite of the odds against her, has, to some 
degree, succeeded in obtaining it. It is espe¬ 
cially incumbent upon you and me to go over 
and help them in the struggle. I feel grateful 
to God, and to the brethren who have had fel¬ 
lowship with me, that in his providence I and 
others as well have been led to that land and 
have been instrumental in leading numbers of 
these people into a fuller obedience of the faith. 

Shortly before leaving Japan I became ac¬ 
quainted with a family that had for about a 
year been under the instruction of the Seventh- 
Day Adventists. While he gratefully acknowl¬ 
edged much valuable help from them, they had 
confused his mind on Sabbath keeping. I went 
to his home and at one sitting with himself and 
wife I cleared matters up, and the very next 
day had the pleasure of baptizing both of them. 
Their oldest child, a daughter of eighteen, has 
also been baptized. Another family had been 
taught of God, of Jesus, that the Bible was 


128 Christ the Light of the World. 

God’s word, and the necessity of a holy life. 
They attended onr services a few times; I then 
had a special meeting with them for the read¬ 
ing of the Scriptures and prayer. Soon after 
I left Japan, Brother Klingman baptized both 
the father and mother and the daughter. One 
of the first whom I immersed in Japan was a 
man who had already been taught much of 
Christianity and who had cast away his idols; 
but he had neglected baptism because he had 
not been taught its importance. As he came 
up out of the water he said: “Tadaima yoro- 
shii”—“Now I know it is all right.” Let us 
both work and pray that many more may go 
over there and take part with us in that work, 
so that scores of others now partly converted 
may, like this old man, be able to say: 6 ‘ Tadaima 
yoroshii. ’ ’ The best way to criticise the errors 
of others is to go ourselves and teach the peo¬ 
ple the way more perfectly. 

On the eve of my leaving Japan the students 
and friends of Zoshigaya gave a little farewell 
meeting for my benefit. It partook, however, 
more of the nature of one of confession and 
prayer than a farewell meeting. One man,- who 
was a Methodist, rose and said that about one 
year ago he had become a Christian. At the 


Christ the Light of the World. 129 


time lie was guilty of a great sin—the tobacco 
habit. He tried to quit it for a while, but had 
fallen into the habit again. His wife had 
pleaded with him to give it up. “I spend,” he 
continued, “one yen and a half per month for 
cigarettes, and,” putting his hand in his coat 
pocket, “I have some of them here now; but to¬ 
night I have made up my mind to give it up, 
and I want you to pray for me that I may have 
the strength to overcome.” We bowed in spe¬ 
cial request for him. Some of you have had 
the idea that the heathen cannot be converted, 
and that the gospel is only skin deep, or, at 
most, not deeper than their stomachs. But how 
many of us in America feel convicted of sin 
because of the tobacco habit ? There are some, 
but I have never heard a brother yet get up 
and make public confession of it. No doubt 
some have, but it was not my privilege to hear 
them. I have heard one man in Japan do it. 
There is much more that might be said on what 
has been accomplished in Japan during the last 
fifty years if time would allow, but here I must 
close; but in doing so permit me to emphasize 
the fact that what we do must be done now , and 
that to-day is the day of salvation. It is not a 
matter we may postpone indefinitely to suit our 
10 


130 Christ the Light of the World. 

convenience or leave to onr children; but unless 
the heathen of this generation hear the gospel 
by ns who are now living , they will never hear 
the gospel. 

Japan to-day is wide open for the reception of 
the gospel. There is just as much freedom al¬ 
lowed to those who desire to preach Christ in 
Japan as there is to those who preach Christ 
in the United States. Every harrier has been 
broken down. Not only every door has been 
opened, but actually every door that was closed 
to the gospel in ancient times has been taken 
off the hinges. Japan to-day is probably as 
ready to receive the gospel as any people on the 
face of the earth. Shall we enter in and give 
it to them ? 

I need not speak of the other great mission 
fields that are in a similar condition; but, 0, 
let us bestir ourselves, beloved friends, and real¬ 
ize the great possibilities, and not only the pos¬ 
sibilities, but the privileges , we have in being 
permitted to live in this present age, in which 
God has done so much and worked so many won¬ 
ders for the advancement and the spread of his 
truth among all the nations! Why, we never 
have heard or read of such an age as the one 
in which we live—a time when all the nations 


Christ the Light of the World. 131 


have become friends, and not only friends, bnt 
neighbors. The whole world, both land and 
sea, is a perfect network of railroads and steam¬ 
ship lines, so that to-day there is no obstacle 
against any one going to any part of the globe 
which he desires to “ spread the joyful news 
wherever man is found. 7 7 0, let ns realize what 

a privilege and what a joy it is to enter into 
such a work as this! I can think of nothing 
which brings more joy and gladness than break¬ 
ing the bread of life to a perishing world. 


132 Christ the Light of the World. 


SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL LIFE IN JAPAN. 


“I will also give thee for a light to the Gen¬ 
tiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the 
end of the earth.’’ (Isa. 49: 6.) 

Beginning of Education. 

Wherever the gospel of Jesus Christ has gone, 
the general enlightenment of mankind has also 
gone. I propose to speak to-night concerning 
schools and school life in Japan. The entrance 
of Buddhism was the beginning of letters in 
Japan, for back of that there was no written or 
authentic history. 

Buddhism entered Japan from Korea in the 
sixth century. Consequently the true history 
of Japan begins with the sixth century of the 
Christian era. Now, the Buddhist priests 
brought with them the learning of China, and, 
to some degree, they encouraged education, hut 
in a very meager way. Not until the entrance 
of the Christian religion a half century ago may 
we say that there were schools in Japan. The 
priests taught some of the Chinese classics, and 



Christ the Light of the World. 133 


also taught Chinese writing to such students as 
desired to come to the temples and study under 
them to become priests themselves; but learn¬ 
ing, as we now have it, was not taught in Japan 
until the Protestant missionaries went there 
about fifty years ago. 

This was about the time Japan was waking 
up to the civilization of the West, and soon after 
the missionaries entered Japan she began to es¬ 
tablish a system of public schools such as we 
have in this country. To this end they sent out 
representative men to America and to Europe 
to study the schools of the West; also, they 
called some of the missionaries and asked their 
assistance in making out a proper system of 
public schools. At the present time Japan has 
as thorough a system of education as any coun¬ 
try in the world. There is not a school district 
in all Japan but what has its school, and there 
is not a child of school age but what is provided 
for. The school age of every child in Japan is 
six years, and education from six to fourteen is 
compulsory. 

Bearing on this particular point, I desire to 
read a paragraph from this book, called “The 
New Horoscope of Missions/’ a late work by 
Dennis. On page 74 he says: “Japanese edu- 


134 Christ the Light of the World. 

cation bids fair to become practically universal, 
since over ninety per cent of tbe children of 
both sexes of school age are under instruction. 
The educational system of the empire requires 
compulsory school attendance between the ages 
of six and fourteen. It is not at all an extrav¬ 
agant forecast to say that before the end of the 
present century Japan, if her progress is marked 
by sanity, wisdom, and self-control, will be one 
of the most intelligent and powerful nations of 
the earth. Over ninety per cent of those of 
school age are attending school.’’ That means 
that over ninety per cent of those from six to 
fourteen are now in attendance. 

The Japanese Course of Study. 

As to the curriculum of the Japanese schools, 
it is very similar to that of our own public 
schools. The little fellow, when he starts to 
school at six years of age, has his little satchel, 
with pencil, slate, paper, and primary books, 
precisely as the little fellow starts to school here 
in America, 

Now, of course, the little child does not begin 
in English as our children do. Instead of writ¬ 
ing English, he writes Japanese, and he is fur¬ 
nished with a book suitable for that purpose— 


Christ the Light of the World. 135 

a little blank book of very tough paper, suitable 
for writing on with what they call a “fude,” a 
brush. Instead of using a pencil or pen, the 
little fellow is taught to use a brush in making 
letters. 

He begins first with the Japanese alphabet, 
the alphabet that was invented by Kobo, the 
priest whose image is in the shrine there on the 
table. Then gradually the Chinese characters 
are brought into his exercises. These are first 
of the simplest forms. For instance, he is 
taught to write “man.” That consists of two 
strokes, a curved line to the left and then an¬ 
other to the right, very much like the marks in 
the hand. That stands for the picture of a man, 
for the Chinese writing simply is picture writ¬ 
ing. A great man has the two curved lines, one 
to the right and another one to the left, then 
a horizontal line across near the top. The hori¬ 
zontal line represents the great man’s arms 
stretched out. This character has come to 
mean, however, not a great man, but simply 
great in the abstract. 

He is taught at first to begin with these sim¬ 
ple forms. By and by he finishes his picture 
writing and has completed a course that is suffi¬ 
cient for him to get along in the world with, 


136 Christ the Light of the World. 

having learned to write at least five thousand 
of these Chinese idiographs. It requires the 
student from eight to ten years to learn how to 
write. 

When he finishes the primary course of eight 
years, he then enters the middle school, and now 
he is ready to take up a new branch of study, 
and that is English. Every student in the Jap- 
anese schools, from the middle schools on up, 
is required to take a course in English, and as 
a result of this thousands of the young people 
in Japan to-day can read our English books 
and, in a limited measure, speak English. You 
could travel all over Japan to-day, and wher¬ 
ever you might go you would find somebody 
that knew English. By the way, what is true 
of Japan is true of the world. You can travel 
all around the world to-day and know nothing 
but English. 

The Student at School. 

Let us follow the student to school to see how 
he gets along during the day. In the first place, 
we see him as he leaves home. He never leaves 
home in the morning without bidding good-by 
to his father and mother, and the Japanese form 
of bidding good-by is to bow and say, “Sayo- 



Christ the Light of the World. 137 

nara ”—“Good-by.” The father and mother 
also respond to the leave-taking by saying: 
“Itte irashaimashi”—“Yon are welcome to 
go.” When the student reaches school, he en¬ 
ters just about such a schoolroom as you would 
enter here, because all the school buildings in 
Japan are built according to> Western style, not 
according to Japanese style. They are fur¬ 
nished with desks and seats practically the same 
as our own school buildings. When the bell 
rings for study, every student is expected to be 
in his place. The teachers are in their places, 
and the whole school rises to make their bow 
to the teachers, and the teachers make their bow 
to the school. That is the beginning of the 
day’s service. 

Now, in the Japanese schools there is no sys¬ 
tem of morals taught. In some of the text¬ 
books there have been incorporated some of the 
moral teachings of Confucius; but a system of 
ethics, such as we teach in the West, is not 
taught in the Japanese schools, and that is one 
of the serious defects of their educational sys¬ 
tem, and one that is now concerning the Depart¬ 
ment of Education in Japan. 

I read of one principal of a certain school 
who hit upon this device in order to instill into 


138 Christ the Light of the World. 


the students high ideals and good morals: He 
made out a course of ten lectures on great men, 
and at the unveiling of their likenesses as they 
hung on the wall all the students were required 
to make a bow to the unveiled hero. Certain 
ones were invited to come and lecture to the 
school on these great men. To complete the 
list, he included Socrates, Newton, and Christ, 
and invited a missionary to come and lecture on 
Jesus Christ, whose likeness also was unveiled, 
not as a divine person, but setting forth the 
high moral character of Jesus as a man. 

The peril of the young people of Japan to-day 
is that, owing to the enlightenment that is com¬ 
ing to them from the West, they have broken 
away from their superstitions, such as we have 
been speaking about; but as yet they have not 
been wedded to any adequate system of moral 
conduct, and, as a result, they are somewhat at 
sea. The present condition is not very flatter¬ 
ing, and is causing deep concern on the part of 
the school authorities and others. For exam¬ 
ple, take this note that I clipped from the Japan 
Times, a daily paper published in Japan, in re¬ 
gard to the students of Tokyo. In the city of 
Tokyo alone there are a hundred thousand stu¬ 
dents. Here is what the clipping says: ‘ ‘Recent 


Christ the Light of the World. 139 

statistics disclose the fact that nine-tenths of 
the students of Tokyo two years ago were lead¬ 
ing lives of immorality. Hardly one college 
boarding house in twenty was not located in an 
atmosphere of dissipation. ’ ’ 

Now, such men as the late Prince Ito, Count 
Okuma, and Baron Shibusawa, leaders in Japan 
in commerce, in philanthropy, and in statesman¬ 
ship, have come to the one conclusion that the 
proper or adequate basis for the morals of the 
country is religion, and they all seem to refer 
to the Christian religion. 1 believe that when 
Japan reaches a proper basis for the morals of 
her schools, she will reach the Bible; and when 
America becomes as sound in mind as she ought 
to he, she will cease her attempts to exclude the 
Bible from the public schools. I do not know 
of anything that is more detrimental to our pub¬ 
lic schools to-day than the sentiment that the 
Bible ought not to be taught in them; it ought 
to be taught daily. 

The student has gone over his regular study 
for the day. School closes in the afternoon at 
the usual hour and he returns home. When he 
reaches the entrance, he meets his mother or his 
father, and he says: ‘‘Tada-ima.’’ That is a 
sort of fragmentary expression for “Tada-ima 


140 Christ the Light of the World. 


watakushiwa kaerimashita”—“Now I have re¬ 
turned.’ 9 The parent says: “Okaeri-nasae”— 
“Honorably condescend to return.” 

You may judge from this that the Japanese 
people are a very polite people, and that is true. 
They are called the “French of the East;” and 
in the household, among the members of the 
family, they are very careful to observe the lit¬ 
tle niceties of etiquette. I think it would be a 
good “thing for us if we would practice more of 
it in our homes and teach the brothers and sis¬ 
ters of a family that there is a certain amount 
of courtesy and politeness due one to the other. 
This would help very much toward teaching our 
children more politeness for their seniors on the 
streets and in public places. 

The schools of Japan are based largely 
after the schools of Germany, and the entire sys¬ 
tem centers in the government. The whole Jap¬ 
anese nation moves as a unit, and everything 
moves for the government. 

Charity Schools. 

When the missionaries entered Japan, they 
started a class of schools that are commonly 
called “charity schools”—that is, they went to 
the most poverty-stricken and neglected por- 


Christ the Light of the World. 141 

tion of the town or city and there rented a 
building and fitted it up, or built one, and then 
went around in that community and gathered 
up every child that they could get and put it in 
this school. They found some very sorry cases 
—children wholly neglected, and such as the 
Japanese people thought were beyond the reach 
of any worthy effort, for at that time it seems 
Japan did not pay much attention to the neg¬ 
lected and the poverty stricken. They gath¬ 
ered these little folks into schools and started 
them right along, just as any other child would 
be started, and along with the common-school 
branches they would teach them little simple 
lessons in the Christian religion. 

One of the first things they would teach them 
would be a song. In order to teach them a 
Christian song, they would have a chart about 
three feet square, and on that chart they would 
write in large letters the words of the song, and 
the little fellow, not yet able to read, would be 
taught this song simply from memory. The 
teacher would call over the words of the song 
and have the school in concert to repeat the 
words after her (or him, as the case might be); 
and after they had gone over it a few times, so 
as to have it committed to memory, then they 


142 Christ the Light of the World. 


would sing it. One of the little simple songs 
that has been taught to these children I remem¬ 
ber learning myself when a child. That is the 
song of— 


“Jesus loves me, this I know. 

For my Bible tells me so. 

Little ones to him belong; 

They are weak, hut he is strong.” 

In Japanese it would be like this: 

Yesu ware wo aisu, 

Seisho ni zo shimesu, 

Tayore waga to mo; 

Sono mi-megumi ni.” 

I have had my heart stirred many times hear¬ 
ing the little folks sing this song, and it is just 
as much to them in Japanese as it is to you and 
me in English. Well, these are seeds dropped 
into their hearts that will hear fruit in years to 
come. Many a missionary has worked along at 
a mission school like this for years and years 
and seen very little results, and yet was doing 
a work that was destined to he very fruitful in 
the final outcome. For instance, in the town of 
Yokohama, the greatest seaport of Japan, where 
all the ships of the world cast anchor, there was 
a Baptist lady missionary some thirty years or 


Christ the Light of the World. 143 

more ago teaching just such a school, gathering 
in these little fellows, and among them she had 
one little boy that was full of mischief; he could 
not be kept still, and sometimes she had to send 
him out of the class. I doubt not if you had 
talked to that woman years afterwards about 
her school and had asked her about the various 
ones that attended, she might have named over 
certain ones, and said: “Well, there is Ohana 
San, who is a very faithful woman now; and 
there is Nakano San living an upright Christian 
]ife; but as to that little Fujimori boy—well, 
he was certainly a problem. I never could get 
his attention; and if I ever made an impression 
on him, I did not know it.” But still she did 
make an impression on the little Fujimori boy. 
That little fellow grew up to he a young man, 
came to this country, was converted in Detroit, 
Mich., and is to-day one of the most useful and 
earnest teachers and preachers we have in 
Japan. Since he and F. A. Wagner started 
their work out there in Shimosa, they have bap¬ 
tized one hundred and seventy-eight people, 
have a good congregation there to-day, a nice 
chapel paid for, and a school for the children 
of the community similar to the one he went to 
when he was back there thirty years ago; for 


144 Christ the Light of the World. 


Otoshige Fujimori, of the Wagner-Fujimori 
Mission, was that very little mischievous hoy. 
In telling me about it, he said he did not remem¬ 
ber one single thing that woman taught, but 
that he did remember she was very patient and 
had a kind face, and that’s the lesson which 
has remained with him till this day. 

We for twelve years had just such a school, 
consisting of all the way from thirty-five to 
sixty children. Perhaps, all told, a thousand 
children passed through that school, and, as to 
what are commonly called “visible results,” I 
had the privilege of baptizing but one little girl 
—a most beautiful character she was. Her name 
was ‘ ‘ O-Suzu; ’ ’ that means ‘ 1 a little bell. ’ ’ She 
lived to be fourteen years old, and took brain 
fever and died. If there was ever a blemish of 
any sort in the life of that little girl, I did not 
find it out. The teacher always praised her, 
and said that whenever any difficulty came up 
among the children she was the peacemaker. 
Now that does not look like very great results 
for twelve years ’ work; but so far as I am con¬ 
cerned, I feel that our labor has been repaid. 
But I am confident, my friends, that, though we 
only baptized one child out of that school, there 
will be fruit in the future growing out of this 


Christ the Light of the World. 145 

work; and it may be that, when I am laid to rest, 
there will be men and women rising up in Japan 
and saying: “He gave me my first start in the 
Kanda Charity School . 9 ’ 

Now these charity schools run by the mission¬ 
aries opened the eyes of the government. They 
did not think that this class of outcasts could 
be reached, or that they were worth reaching; 
but when they saw the development of such 
children, and saw them growing up into man¬ 
hood and womanhood and going out and filling 
important places in the busy world, they said: 
“This is a good work. We ought to have been 
doing this before. It is rather a shame to let 
these missionaries come over here and do this 
work that we ought to have been doing. ’ 9 As a 
result, the government has bestirred itself, and 
has built schools all about in the poverty- 
stricken sections of the towns and cities, so that 
to-day the “charity school” is no longer a ne¬ 
cessity. 

Other Mission Schools. 

The mission schools in Japan do not consist 
of charity schools alone, but there are other 
schools for the young men and the young women 
of Japan of different classes. The schools run 
by the various missions number 153, and in 
li 


146 Christ the Light of the World. 

these schools there are 12,588 students. These 
students are taught just about the same course 
as they would he taught in the Japanese public 
schools. In addition to this, they are brought 
under Christian influence. Every morning 
school is opened with Christian services, such as 
prayer and reading of the Scriptures. Also, in 
these schools there are Bible departments, 
where there are students trained especially for 
Christian work. In addition to this, there are 
100,000 of the Japanese children in the Sunday 
schools and about 8,000 in the kindergarten. 

This line of work is a great power for good in 
Japan, for many who have gone through the 
mission schools, both men and women, are now 
occupying important stations in Japanese soci¬ 
ety—in business, in the diplomatic service, in 
the hospital, and in other professions; also in 
government offices and in the schools; and Japan 
to-day is seeing the value of such work more 
clearly than she saw it in former years. 

And especially have these schools been a 
blessing to the women of Japan. Many of the 
young women who have gone through these 
schools are now the wives of honorable men, be¬ 
cause these men realize that they make better 
wives than those who have not had such train- 






















































































Christ the Light of the World. 147 


ing. Not only so, but the Japanese people them¬ 
selves are taking up such training for their 
young women, and are giving them all the ad¬ 
vantages that the boys have, which was not the 
case a few years ago. 

Zoshigaya Gakuin. 

Seeing the need of religion and good morals 
along with education, some ten years ago I be¬ 
gan to think about establishing a school; but 
it is not an easy thing to start a school in a pa¬ 
gan land, especially if you have no means to 
establish it with, and that was just the fix I was 
in. However, I did not despise the day of small 
things, but began to collect a school fund and 
to lay the matter before the Lord and the breth¬ 
ren and churches of this country. The school 
fund kept growing, and while it was growing I 
was doing what I could toward starting the 
school. At first I rented a little Japanese house 
and opened the work. That was September 1, 
1902. After the school fund had grown about 
five years, I had an opportunity of selling my 
own home and buying in a suitable place for a 
school; and by getting two lots adjacent, so that 
my private property could be used to the ad¬ 
vantage of the school, we obtained a fair-sized 


148 Christ the Light of the World. 

piece of ground of a little more than an acre. 
Suitable buildings were erected, and the school 
was opened at the new plant October 1, 1907. 
Up to June 30,1908, there had been enrolled two 
hundred and one students from the beginning. 
Of course, we did not have that many present at 
one time; usually we have about twenty or twen¬ 
ty-five. 

Now, in regard to this work, I want to say 
some things that are of interest. It was a new 
experience in connection with work in Japan. 
You know, you can go out on the street and 
speak to an audience, and you do not come into 
any very close relationship with the people. 
They stand off here and listen and then scatter, 
and that is the end of it. You may get together 
an audience in a hall and speak to them; and 
when the meeting is over, it is over, and all re¬ 
sponsibility with them is ended. But when you 
come to enter into school relations with people, 
it is different. It is more like a family, and the 
relationship is closer, and I had some misgiv¬ 
ings as to whether or not a foreigner would be 
able to get along successfully with Japanese un¬ 
der those circumstances. 

When I had completed the buildings, my fam¬ 
ily were in America, and so I rented out my 






M CALEB S DWELLING 























































































































































Christ the Light of the World. 149 

own dwelling to another and took the third 
story of the school building for my room. There 
was just one room up there, and in building it 
I had it fitted up specially for my own comfort 
and convenience, and with the design also that, 
when I was not occupying it, it could he a sort 
of prayer room for the students, where they 
could go away up there in the quiet and engage 
in the study of the Scriptures, in meditation, 
and in prayer. 

For more than a year I lived right there in 
the dormitory with the young men and superin¬ 
tended the work, and was brought into the 
closest relationships with the students. I 
learned some things from that experience that 
I did not know before about Japanese charac¬ 
ter and Japanese life. For instance, I had some 
misgivings about whether or not I would be 
able to get along successfully in regard to man¬ 
aging the finances, for the school is established 
upon the principle that every student that en¬ 
ters it must pay. He pays a certain rent for 
his room and a reasonable tuition for his Eng¬ 
lish, if he takes English, and these fees are col¬ 
lected every month. Also, we had to come to 
some understanding about how the students 
were to be fed. We finally reached this basis, 


150 Christ the Light of the World. 


which has proved very satisfactory: The culi¬ 
nary department is turned over to the students. 
I have nothing to do with that, except to advise 
with them, which I found to be a very pleasant 
experience. They have a committee appointed 
for each month. That committee attends to the 
buying for the kitchen, employs a cook, and sees 
after the cooking. Every student pays in for 
his board to the committee his proportion for 
the month, which is seven yen, or $3.50. Some¬ 
times there is a little margin left over at the end 
of the month, but they endeavor to use up the 
full seven yen, because the students are coming 
and going, and in order to give each one his 
share it is necessary to have nothing left over. 
This system has been found to work well. 

As to the collecting of the school fees, the 
tuition for English and the room rent, the prin¬ 
cipal does that himself. This constitutes a fund 
to keep up the running expenses of the school. 
I will give you some figures here for 1908. In¬ 
cluding room rent and tuition, the income from 
the school was 436 yen 6 sen. A yen is 50 cents. 
You can divide that by two and get the number 
of dollars. The house was painted and a num¬ 
ber of furnishings put in, and all current ex¬ 
penses paid out of this fund, after which there 


Christ the Light of the World. 151 

was, at the end of the year, a balance of 33 yen 
75 sen. 

The policy of the school is that the income 
shall meet the expenses. Since I have been 
back in xVmerica, Brother Klingman has been 
superintending the work, and has been able to 
show an income at the end of almost every 
month. Sometimes the expenses take up most 
of the income. We enlarged the building 
shortly before I left and incurred a debt, and 
this income in each month from the school helps 
pay off that debt. When this is done, it will 
serve as a fund to keep up current expenses and 
to help us in forwarding the work. In starting 
a school, a church, or anything else, it must con¬ 
tinue to grow. It is impossible to stand still. 
Nothing is fixed, but change. The idea is that 
we must keep the school growing at all times. 
I do not want to see the day when our school 
shall have reached the limit. I want to see it 
growing all the time. 

Now there is this much to be said in regard 
to that particular point of the school being self- 
supporting. There are not many schools in 
Japan of that kind, but this school to-day could 
be run if it were left entirely in the hands of 
the Japanese people, so far as the finances go; 


152 Christ the Light of the World. 

and that is the basis to be aimed at for all mis¬ 
sionary work, whether church or school. We 
cannot always reach it immediately, but that is 
the ultimate end to be reached—to put the 
churches and schools, as far as possible, on their 
own financial responsibility; and I feel very 
grateful that our school is on just such a basis, 
so that, instead of being a constant drain all the 
time from the missionary funds, it is really 
bringing in a little income. 

As to the curriculum of the school, we do not 
pretend to teach a full course. In the first 
place, we haven’t the force to do it. In the sec¬ 
ond place, it is not so necessary. As already 
stated, Japan has a thorough system of schools 
in all the common branches, and in establishing 
this school we did so with a view of having it 
in reach of the schools of Tokyo. Not to speak 
of other schools, just twenty minutes’ walk 
from us is the Waseda University, a school of 
some sixteen hundred students. Many of our 
boys go over to the university for their various 
studies. They come back in the afternoon when 
their classes are over, and have a good, clean, 
Christian home in which to lodge. We en¬ 
deavor to make their surroundings as comfort¬ 
able as possible. In the evening we have Eng- 


Christ the Light op the World. 153 

lish and Bible classes. Every morning we have 
a short session of song and prayer service be¬ 
fore they go out to school. On Sundays we 
have, from eight to nine o ’clock, a lecture to the 
young men in English—they all know English; 
then from ten to eleven we have a meeting of 
the church for the Lord’s Supper. Ten have 
already been baptized at this place. Then at 
two o ’clock we have Sunday school, and at night 
we have preaching in Japanese for all that we 
can get to come from the neighborhood round 
about. 

It is a village where we live, and a good place 
for work. When we went there three years ago, 
it was a new field. It seems that nothing had 
ever been done there in the way of Christian 
work. 

I remember very well the first time we tried 
to have Sunday school for the little children. 
I went out to get them to come into the chapel. 
Three or four came as far as the street corner. 
I had put up a swing right on the corner of our 
grounds for the benefit of the children, and 
finally I got them as far as that swing. I then 
took one of those charts, on which was written 
a song, and put it out on the side of the house 
where they could see it, for the letters were 


154 Christ the Light of the World. 


large. One or two of the students assisted me, 
and we sung the song to the children off there 
in the swing. That was as near as we could 
get them that day. We talked to them a little, 
and told them to come back next Sunday. That 
was the beginning of our work among the chil¬ 
dren. When I left there last June, there were, 
on the last Sunday before I left, seventy-two of 
the children of that community in the Sunday 
school. We have regular attendance now of 
about thirty, and they do not stop at the swing 
any more. We have a nice chapel large enough 
to seat about fifty or sixty, and, like children 
anywhere else, they come right in and take their 
seats, and are ready for the songs and lessons 
whenever the time comes. 

Just a short time ago some of the friends in 
the community came to Brother Klingman and 
said it was their custom to gather together the 
children in the beginning of every year and tell 
them some old Japanese stories, and, as the 
chapel was the most convenient place in the 
neighborhood, they would like to use the chapel. 
Brother Klingman did not know just what to 
do, but, after consultation with some of the Jap¬ 
anese brethren, and also with one of the best 
women in Japan, they decided that they would 



Christ the Light of the World. 155 

allow them the use of the chapel, hut under re¬ 
strictions. They had about sixteen speakers on 
the programme; but the brethren got together 
and said this was too many speakers, and to 
cut it down to half. They also said that they 
must not have any stories but nice, clean stories, 
and so they had it understood as to what stories 
were to he told. The time came, the children 
assembled, the house was running over, and the 
speakers told the stories, and Brother Hiratsuka 
and other of our coworkers there also told 
Christian stories, and, all in all, they had a most 
satisfactory meeting. 

As an introduction to the work in general at 
Zoshigaya, on the first New Year’s Day we 
bought enough New Testaments and tracts to 
give one to every neighbor in the community. 
Also, we bought some oranges for the children, 
and had a little sack of oranges and a package 
containing a New Testament and some tracts— 
enough, in all, to make a cart load. One of the 
boys and I put them on the hand cart we keep 
about the house there and started out. We gave 
to each house a copy of the New Testament, 
some Christian tracts, and a little present of 
oranges. They received them very politely, ac¬ 
cording to their custom. In giving these little 


156 Christ the Light of the World. 


Testaments out to the people, I took occasion 
to talk to them about what they call the Shin- 
yaku Seisho—the “New-Covenant Holy-Book 
and then, of course, I would have to explain 
about what it was and what it taught. In this 
way I was all the while endeavoring to get a life 
thought into their minds. 

It was a long time before we could get the 
people out much, and it is hard even yet, be¬ 
cause they are strong Buddhists in that section. 
They are old-fashioned and slow to give up old 
customs, but gradually the older people are com¬ 
ing out to the meetings as well as the children. 

I feel very much encouraged over this work. 
It has been a promising work from the first— 
not that there have been such great results, but 
I am sure it is becoming a power for good among 
the people. We are endeavoring as far as pos¬ 
sible to keep track of all students that come into 
our school, so that we may know what becomes 
of them and what are the results of their stay 
with us. We receive letters from them occa¬ 
sionally. I had a letter from one not a great 
while ago, and there are some very interesting 
things in it. I will only take the liberty to men¬ 
tion what he says in regard to his religious ex¬ 
periences. He is away down south now at his 


Christ the Light of the World. 157 


home in the island of Kynshn. In his charac¬ 
teristic English he says: ‘ 4 When I was living in 
the dormitory under your guidance, I felt I was 
on the side of Buddhism. I was mistaken. 
Having mingled among my native villagers, who 
confess themselves Buddhists, I found my be¬ 
lief in religion was quite different from theirs. 
I had been carried to the camp of Christians 
while I was not aware of it. The true Bud¬ 
dhism might not differ from the true Chris¬ 
tianity, hut it is undeniable fact that the inter¬ 
preters or the monks of the Buddhism are quite 
mistaken or neglecting their duties to enlighten 
the people who are full of prejudice. At a time 
Bible class and morning service were unpleas¬ 
ant to me, hut in such place where no air of 
Christianity is found for breath I keenly long 
for them.” There are scores and hundreds of 
such towns and villages all over Japan where 
“no air of Christianity is found for breath” and 
where many others also “keenly long” for 
something better than the hopelessness of Bud¬ 
dhism. 

Another student who is not a Christian also 
wrote me a letter not long ago. He was at the 
time engaged in teaching in one of the middle 
schools in South Japan, and he said that he had 


158 Christ the Light of the World. 

a Bible class of the students in bis school. 
There is another student, married and has a 
family, who, though not a Christian, yet one 
would almost think he was, to hear him talk. 
His fellow-students have sometimes accused him 
of being one. He was with us about a year, and 
knew a good deal about Christianity before he 
came to us (for I do not wish to make the im¬ 
pression that we have taught these young men 
all); but for a year he was with us under Chris¬ 
tian teaching and instruction. To-day he is liv¬ 
ing not far away, and is always ready to assist 
us in anything that is for the good of the school, 
and his three bright little children, a little boy 
and two girls, are among our Sunday-school 
children. His wife is yet a Buddhist. I do not 
believe it is proper to call him a “Buddhist.’’ 
He is Christian in sentiment. When his wife 
came up to Tokyo a year after he did, her 
mother, knowing that her husband was leaning 
toward Christianity and was going to a Chris¬ 
tian school, made a request that she never 
change her faith, but stick to the faith of her 
mother, and she, out of regard to her mother, 
is still holding to the Buddhist faith. 

I would like to add this thought: We need 
a larger working force. We need some more 


Christ the Light of the World. 159 


American missionaries there and onr buildings 
enlarged. Also, we need a similar work started 
for the girls of Japan. We are only working 
for the hoys. We need some competent, conse¬ 
crated woman to take charge of a girls’ home, 
such as we have for hoys. What England has 
been to Europe, Japan is destined to he to all 
Asia. “Japan is leading the East, hut whith¬ 
er?” This will depend on where she is led 
herself. Now is the time to strike. Already 
Japan is sending her missionaries to Korea, 
Manchuria, and China. Several young men 
taught by Brother Bishop, myself, and others 
are already in distant parts. Let us push this 
work, and not only reach Japan for her own 
sake, hut through her reach all Asia. 


160 Christ the Light of the World. 


MISSION WORK OF THE CHURCHES OF 
CHRIST. 


“And when they were come, and had gath¬ 
ered the church together, they rehearsed all 
things that God had done with them, and that 
he had opened a door of faith unto the Gentiles. 
And they tarried no little time with the disci¬ 
ples.” (Acts 14: 27, 28.) 

It will be observed that these two missiona¬ 
ries, the first foreign missionaries sent to for¬ 
eign fields from the country where the gospel 
had been planted, were sent by the church. 
When they had fulfilled their ministry, they re¬ 
turned and reported to the church. This mis¬ 
sionary tour of these two apostles lasted about 
two years, it seems; and so it is the proper or¬ 
der to follow at the present time. Every church, 
if it is truly an apostolic church, is God’s mis¬ 
sionary society, and every member of that 
church, if he is a New Testament Christian, is 
a missionary. 

It is the privilege and the duty of every one 



Christ the Light of the World. 161 

who labors in a distant land and who is in co¬ 
operation with the churches in his home land to 
do just as the apostles did—return at stated 
times, gather the church together, and rehearse 
all that God has done with him. This is profit¬ 
able to the church in regard to their work at 
home and abroad, and it is profitable also to 
the missionary himself. I believe it a mutual 
blessing for missionaries to make periodic re¬ 
turns to their home land. Now, in a foreign 
field, among pagan people, a person is deprived 
of that spiritual uplift that comes from associa¬ 
tion, and so has to have a pretty good stock of 
religion if he continues to give out every day 
and does not exhaust his store, and for this rea¬ 
son it is good occasionally to come hack home, 
get in touch with God’s people again, get in 
touch with his country, get a sort of new in¬ 
spiration, and also keep up with the progress of 
the country of his nativity. 

Now, to-night I desire to give you as full and 
clear an outline of the work in Japan as the 
time will admit. The work commonly known 
as “the work of the churches of Christ in Amer¬ 
ica” was begun in Japan in the year 1892. This 
was the first work done in that land by the 


12 


162 Christ the Light of the World. 

churches of America independent and apart 
from all foreign missionary societies. 

The Workers. 

The first company that went to Japan in the 
spring of 1892 consisted of five persons, two men 
and three women. From that time until 1910 
twenty-three American missionaries have en¬ 
tered this work. This includes our brother, B. 
W. Hon, who is to sail on September 19, he and 
his wife and little boy. [They reached Japan 
in the early part of October.] At present there 
are over forty young people, men and women, 
who have expressed a willingness to go as for¬ 
eign missionaries. How many of these will 
really go is not yet determined, for it is one 
thing to be willing to go and quite a different 
thing bravely to overcome all and actually go. 
Various obstacles stand in the way of going 
which need not be repeated just now. However, 
I believe that out of these forty we will have 
some, at least, in the foreign fields before many 
years. I take this occasion of saying that I 
hope those thinking about going to the foreign 
field, as well as the churches sending them, will 
not confine their thoughts and efforts simply to 
Japan. Now, I am especially interested in Ja- 


Christ the Light of the World. 163 


pan, because that is my field of labor, but I be¬ 
lieve we ought to take the whole world into view 
and send out workers into the various heathen 
fields. 

We have also, from first to last, fourteen Jap¬ 
anese workers who have been associated with 
our work in Japan. Out of the fourteen, we 
have at present nine. 

Here are the missionaries who are now con¬ 
nected with the work, taking them in the order 
of their entering the field: J. M. McCaleb and 
wife (1892), William J. Bishop and wife (1899), 
C. C. Klingman and wife (1908), B. W. Hon and 
wife (1910)—eight in all. The names of the 
native helpers are as follows: Fujimori and two 
native helpers, Hiratsuka, Mrs. Kato, Mrs. 
Yoko, Mrs. Matsumoto, Tsukamoto, and Hashi- 
moto. Of these helpers, there are only two that 
receive support. The other seven receive no re¬ 
muneration for their work. Hashimoto is a 
man of easy circumstances, and does not need 
or ask anything for his services. He works be¬ 
cause he loves to work. 

As to the churches, seven congregations have 
been established. The number of baptisms 
from the beginning until now, as nearly as we 
can get at it, for complete records have not been 


164 Christ the Light of the World. 


kept, are five hundred and nineteen. All of the 
churches are partly self-supporting, two of them 
entirely so. 


Summary of the Work. 

As to schools, we have five Sunday schools, or 
Bible schools. The number of children in these 
schools is about two hundred and thirty. 
Boarding schools for young men, one. That is 
the Zoshigaya Gakuin. Number of rooms in 
this boarding school, twenty-four; number of 
students we can accommodate, thirty-two. The 
total enrollment in this school up to June 30, 
1908, was two hundred and one. I have not re¬ 
ceived any statement from our coworker and 
brother there as to how many have been en¬ 
rolled since; I kept the record up to that point 
only. If I should make a guess, I would say 
perhaps seventy-five have been enrolled since 
then. That would make a total of two hundred 
and seventy-six who have entered the school 
since it was opened some eight years ago. 

As to mission property, we have three church 
buildings—one at Zoshigaya; one at Koishi- 
kawa, where Brother Bishop works; and one at 
Shimosa, where Brother Fujimori is located. 

As to mission homes, we have four—Brother 


Christ the Light of the World. 165 


Bishop’s home, my own, Brother Fujimori’s 
home, and Brother Hiratsuka’s home—all of 
which were built with money from the United 
States. Now, I would have to modify that a 
little in regard to my own home, because I 
bought a little piece of land years ago, and it in¬ 
creased in value, and my house was built out of 
the increase. 

As to school buildings, we have two. 

Value of church buildings estimated at $2,250. 

Mission homes are valued at $4,000. That 
would be an average of a thousand dollars each, 
but the Japanese homes did not cost as much as 
the two foreign homes. 

School buildings valued at $2,500. 

Value of lands owned, $9,000. Brother Fuji¬ 
mori owns fifty acres of land valued at, I would 
say, $40 an acre, which would make $2,000. 
The land belonging to the school, I think, is 
worth $3,000, and the private property I own 
next to it I estimate at $4,000, making the total 
of land values $9,000. This lot of mine is pri¬ 
vate property, it is true, but, nevertheless, to all 
intents and purposes, is used the same as mis¬ 
sion property, and so long as it is in my posses¬ 
sion and I am engaged in mission work in Ja¬ 
pan it will be used in the same way. Some day 


166 Christ the Light of the World. 


I hope to transfer it completely to the school, 
so as to leave a plant there that will be a very 
useful religious and educational center when my 
own labors are ended. 

Trips to Some of the Work. 

I have given briefly the work that has been 
done in Japan. Now I desire that we take a 
visit to Japan and make a few hurried trips to 
the different places of work. We have been to 
Zoshigaya on previous occasions already, and 
the next place in order we will visit is Koishi- 
kawa, some two miles away. This is the oldest 
mission work of the churches of Christ in Japan. 
Tt was begun by our lamented brother, E. Snod¬ 
grass, more than twenty years ago. He rented 
a little Japanese house, fitted it up with seats, 
started a Sunday school for the children, also 
preached for the grown people, and soon gath¬ 
ered together a few believers, and, in the course 
of time, built up a congregation. He labored 
on until the declining health of Mrs. Snodgrass 
required his return to America, and at that time 
he turned over the work to our present co¬ 
worker, Brother William J. Bishop. This work 
has had a steady growth from the beginning un¬ 
til now. By and by they moved out of the little 


Christ the Light of the World. 167 


Japanese house and moved into a neat, comfort¬ 
able building. Brother Grow, of Kentucky, gen¬ 
erously gave the money to build the chapel. At 
present the church consists of about sixty-two 
members, and we have there with that congrega¬ 
tion a very efficient Japanese brother, who is 
one of the most consecrated men that I have 
ever become acquainted with. It was at Koishi- 
kawa that I attended my first Japanese meet¬ 
ing, where I got my first experience and came 
first in touch with the work in Japan. 

Now, passing on from Koishikawa, let us take 
a trip out into the country about thirty miles 
from the city of Tokyo. We go about twenty 
miles on the train, then we must walk across 
the country about a mile or a mile and a half. 
We come to a village called “Foochoo.” This 
is a characteristic village, and represents the 
villages generally in Japan. It consists mainly 
of one long street, which is simply a part of the 
main highway, while the houses are built on 
either side. There are no pavements or side¬ 
walks. We must walk just as we would do in 
the country, in the middle of the road; and that 
is true not only of the villages of Japan, but o| 
all towns and cities. Even the great city of 
Tokyo has very few sidewalks. 


168 Christ the Light of the World. 


A Japanese brother is along with ns by the 
name of “Ozaki.” We have a supply of tracts 
and Christian literature. As we walk down the 
street, the first to see the foreigners are the chil¬ 
dren, who are always out of doors. They be¬ 
gin to follow along to see the curious seiyojin, 
those of a little larger size begin to stop and 
turn around and follow after, while the grown 
people begin to turn their heads, and by the 
time we reach the village we have, perhaps, a 
hundred people following us. We stop and 
give out tracts and talk to the people right in 
the middle of the street, and unless we block 
the street completely the policemen will not in¬ 
terfere. We have never gathered any fruit in 
this town, but I mention it because it is one of 
the first fields of labor in my experience in 
Japan. 

B. Ozaki is one of our early converts, and is 
the fruit of a Bible class in my own home. He 
and a companion were baptized at the same 
time in the Biver Smeda, about five or ten min¬ 
utes ’ walk from our home. Ozaki was a teacher 
in one of the common schools in the city of 
Tokyo. After filling that position for quite a 
while his father fell sick, and he had to return 
home. I have lost sight of him; but if he is the 


Christ the Light of the World. 169 

man that I take him to be, and is still living, 
he is a shining light among his people. 

On one occasion, as we returned from Foo- 
choo, we stopped at the station to wait for the 
train, and a number of people were also sitting 
around in the station waiting. We went to an 
open place, gave out some tracts and got the at¬ 
tention of the people, and spent about an hour 
talking to them of the Christian religion. A 
policeman stands by and silently listens, with 
about as much expression on his face as a statue. 
But when the preaching is over, he comes up 
and asks for a tract. Of course, we are glad to 
give him one. When all is over and we are 
leaving the place, Ozaki says: ‘ ‘ They may think 
that I am mad, but my God knows that I am not 
mad.” The idea with this young man was: 
These native people, my countrymen, may think 
that I have gone crazy, this is such an unusual 
thing for a Japanese to do. Not only was it an 
unusual thing, my dear friends, but I want to 
say to you that it was a courageous thing. 
Now, how would one of you young men feel, go¬ 
ing right out here on the street where you are 
known and standing out in the midst of your 
own people, exhorting them and warning them 
to flee the wrath to come, or, what would 


170 Cheist the Light of the Woeld. 


make it still more trying, begin to teach them 
something new, a religion that yon had adopted 
that was not common in your own country, and 
which we would consider a heretical religion! 
That is what B. Ozaki did. 

We are back in Tokyo and want to visit the 
province of Shimosa, some sixty miles from the 
city. This is where Fujimori is located. In or¬ 
der to give a brief history of this work, I must 
go back several years. Soon after the World’s 
Fair at Chicago in 1893 there was a man by the 
name of “ Yoshikawa,” who had been baptized 
by some brother there, that was sent by one of 
the Chicago churches back to Japan as a mis¬ 
sionary. Yoshikawa did not show all the wis¬ 
dom that a man ought to show. He went back 
with a sort of boastful spirit. You know, it is 
an easy thing to criticise, and he said the mis¬ 
sionaries over there were not doing nearly as 
much as he could do, that he could do as much 
in a year as they would do in five or six; and 
he promised the brethren at Chicago that he 
would go back and have a large, prosperous, 
self-supporting church in a very short time. 
They were foolish enough to believe it, and sent 
him back on that condition. Things did not 
come out just as he thought they would, and 


Christ the Light of the World. 171 

after a little while there was dissatisfaction. 
He started to work in Tokyo, but afterwards 
gave it np and went ont to Shimosa and bar¬ 
gained for a piece of land, with a view of estab¬ 
lishing a Christian colony. After he settled 
there, I went out to his place and lodged with 
him several nights in his little straw house, or 
‘ 1 shack, ”as we would call it. Some posts were 
put up, and across them he tied bamboo rods, 
and then covered it with straw. That is the 
kind of house he was living in and in which we 
were entertained for several days. He started 
a work there that, if it had been properly man¬ 
aged, would have been a very useful and profit¬ 
able work; but he was not the man for the 
place; he lacked character. He finally gave it 
up and went to one of the middle schools in an¬ 
other part of the empire and engaged himself 
as an English teacher. Now, Yoshikawa’s work 
would be considered a failure, yet the work in 
Shimosa to-day is partly due to Yoshikawa. 
While he was still there, F. A. Wagner and 0. 
Fujimori made their arrival in Japan. The col¬ 
ony idea was one that Brother Wagner liked 
and a work that he desired to imitate, so we 
went out there to see it and spent a night or two 
with Yoshikawa. These two men, Wagner and 


172 Christ the Light of the World. 

Fujimori, went about two miles away and lo¬ 
cated the present plant. Not only so, but dur¬ 
ing Yoshikawa’s labors there he converted one 
of the men of the community, who is still in 
that place, and a faithful Christian man—a 
very striking illustration of the fact that seem¬ 
ing failure sometimes results in success. 

We go out to Fujimori’s place and find him 
living in a comfortable Japanese house, and 
right on the same grounds, inside of the same 
wall, is the chapel, costing about a thousand dol¬ 
lars—a very substantial building built partly 
Japanese style and partly foreign, fitted with 
seats and pulpit similar to ours, and large 
enough to accommodate two hundred and fifty 
people. I was there at the opening of this 
house, and was very much gratified by what had 
been accomplished. 

It has been my privilege to make frequent 
visits out to this work, and it is encouraging to 
know that it is making gradual progress. Of 
course, wherever you plant the Christian reli¬ 
gion, it is going to meet with its backsets, its 
opposition and discouragements. 

I remember especially one occasion when I 
met with the brethren there: Brother Fuji¬ 
mori was in one comer teaching a class of the 


Christ the Light of the World. 173 


older brethren; across yonder was one of his 
helpers teaching another class; over there was a 
third teaching a class; and back in the small 
room, corresponding to the room in this build¬ 
ing, was Sister Fujimori with the infant class, 
such as Sister Emma Page teaches here; and as 
I think of this work going on there—a very 
promising work, for on that occasion there were 
seventy-odd present—I cannot but contrast the 
Christian work that is being carried on at that 
place with its surroundings. Now, of course, 
God’s work is important anywhere. It is im¬ 
portant right here, just as important as it is 
there; but when you see a work like that planted 
right in the midst of the darkness of heathen¬ 
ism, the contrast is brought out more vividly, 
and you appreciate it more than you do in a 
Christian land where the contrast is not so 
great. All around this work is dense darkness, 
ignorance, superstition of all kinds, temples in 
every village and priests in the temples, and the 
people so priest-ridden that they are afraid not 
to obey their masters. There is nothing in the 
temple service to elevate, refine, or give hope. 
Such a thing as discipline is unknown. Every 
one does what he pleases, and none is guilty of 
misconduct. On special occasions there are 


174 Christ the Light of the World. 


great festivals, and the people come out some¬ 
times by the thousands. Their coming to¬ 
gether, however, is not for spiritual uplift, but 
purely for the gratification of the flesh, and de¬ 
cent language would not describe what is car¬ 
ried on at these temples. Now there are just 
such places as these all around Fujimori’s work. 
When we think about the environment of the 
Shimosa work, and then step inside and see that 
God’s power is taking hold of that people, lead¬ 
ing them out and lifting them up, and taking 
their feet out of the mire and placing them on 
the rock, we begin to realize that God’s message 
is still, even among the heathen, God’s power 
unto salvation. 

One year ago last spring I paid my last visit 
to this work. I remember, as we were stand¬ 
ing out under one of the cherry trees, right at 
the corner of the chapel, the last person in that 
little familiar group I told good-by was Sister 
Fujimori, the teacher of the infant class. I said 
to her: “My sister, a great deal depends on you 
in this work. You must not overtax yourself; 
you must go slow and turn the heavier burdens 
over to others.” But in six months after I left 
Japan the sad news came that Sister Fujimori 
was dead. When the chapel was built, there 


Christ the Light of the World. 175 


was a Methodist class leader present who made 
a speech, and in that speech he referred to the 
time when the plains of Shimosa were in the 
wilds, but now, in place of the howl of the fox, 
there was heard the voice of praise going up to 
God from a Christian assembly. He also said: 
“ People, seeing Fujimori riding around over 
the country here on his horse, might think that 
he was doing it all out here at Shimosa; hut 
there is a power behind the throne that is do¬ 
ing this work, and Fujimori is not the only one 
in it.” Now, this, coming from a Japanese, is 
a very high tribute to woman, but no more 
than she deserves and no more than others are 
giving to women in Japan, yet it is foreign to 
the Japanese not touched or elevated by the 
Christian religion. She was one of the most 
efficient workers that I have ever met among the 
women in Japan—quiet, unassuming, cheerful, 
faithful, and with tact and ability to keep things 
together. Our brother has keenly felt her loss 
since she went away. 

Another brief visit before we close, and this 
time we will go away from Tokyo about eighty 
miles to another town of some forty thousand 
people, called “Ashikaga.” It was here that I 
had some of my first experiences in missionary 


176 Christ the Light of the World. 


work in Japan. Work had already been begun 
there by the Presbyterians, and some of the peo¬ 
ple bad broken away from idolatry. One fam¬ 
ily especially, I remember, bad given up their 
idols. They were Buddhists. When they 
learned of the true God, the old father gathered 
up all of bis idols and cast them away, saying 
be bad no further use for such things. How¬ 
ever, be bad not rendered a full obedience, but 
be was ready and willing to study the Chris¬ 
tian religion further. It was either the first or 
the second visit that I made to this place that I 
had the privilege of baptizing two young men 
of the town. On a later trip I baptized others 
—in all, eight. Among the number was this old 
father that bad formerly cast away his idols, 
but who bad not yet fully followed the Lord in 
becoming a Christian. As he saw more truth, 
he accepted it. That is what all of us ought to 
do. None of us have all the truth; we ought 
not to sit down with the feeling that we have 
it all, and that we are right in everything. I 
know the Bible is right, but I do not know that 
I have reached the full measure of the stature 
of the Christian man in Christ Jesus. I know I 
have not, hut I am willing to grow. Every 
Christian man and every Christian woman 


Christ the Light of the World. 177 

ought to keep on growing. This man was grow¬ 
ing; he was walking in the light that he had, 
seeking more. When he found more, he was 
willing to accept it; and on that beautiful after¬ 
noon we went out there to the river which flows 
down from the snow-capped mountains, and this 
old man and several others went down into the 
clear waters of that stream, and I buried them 
with the Lord in baptism. As he came up out 
of the water, the old man said: 1 ‘ Tadaima yoro- 
shii”—“Now I know it is all right.’’ He was 
not sure about that substitute for baptism; but 
when he had followed the example of his Lord, 
he said: “Now I know it is all right.’’ This 
should be the case with every one. We have 
but one life to live. We pass through this world 
but once, and we cannot afford to take any risk 
where we can be absolutely certain; and, grant¬ 
ing that there may be a convenient substitute 
for the original manner of burying people with 
the Lord in baptism, there is always more or 
less doubt about it. Every man ought to be 
able to say: “Tadaima yoroshii”—“Now I 
know it is all right. ’’ 

These were the first baptisms that ever took 
place in that town, and I had the happy feeling 
that I was building on a new foundation, and 
13 


178 Christ the Light of the World. 

I believe I got a little of that joy and gladness 
that Paul mnst have had when he said that he 
desired not to build on the foundation of an¬ 
other, but to go out into new fields and plant 
Christ in virgin soil. There is still a church 
in this town. I do not know how many they 
number now; but when I used to know them, 
they numbered about thirty-five, were independ¬ 
ent, had a lot purchased, and funds started to 
build a house. They have departed somewhat 
from the simplicity of the faith, but to what ex¬ 
tent I do not know. However, I am sure that 
even the work in Ashikaga to-day is far ahead 
of what it was before Christ ever entered there. 
When I go back to Japan, it is my purpose to go 
up there and see if I can strengthen them and 
get the brethren back again. 

We will not have time to make any other vis¬ 
its now. There are several others we might 
make, but the ones already taken will give you 
some idea of the manner and nature of the work 
in Japan. I say “some idea,” because it is im¬ 
possible for you to get a perfect idea by an 
imperfect and fragmentary description. The 
only way for you to understand the work in Ja¬ 
pan is to go and see it for yourselves. 

I have long been wanting some good brother 


Christ the Light of the World. 179 

to come over and visit ns, see what we are do¬ 
ing, criticise ns, encourage ns, suggest to ns this 
or that point where we might make improve¬ 
ments, and to come hack as an eyewitness and 
tell what he saw in Japan. Now, yon know we 
missionaries are always placed at a discount 
when we come back home, for people have a 
feeling that perhaps we are overdrawing the 
picture, whether we do it or not; and we may do 
it, for we are always having to plead our own 
cause, and it is perfectly natural to suppose that 
a man pleading his own cause will make it as 
favorable as possible. It is not at all impossi¬ 
ble that we may sometimes overdraw the pic¬ 
ture. But I would like for some of the brethren 
to come over there and see the work, and then 
it might be brought before you in a truer light. 
At any rate, you would naturally he inclined to 
give more credence to what an outsider would 
say. 

Nature of Mission Work. 

Now, the work in Japan is a slow work, at 
least it has been. All these mission fields have 
been hard to work. Men have labored and 
lived and died without any visible results. 
Take Robert Morrison, for instance, who spent 
in China twenty-seven years of his life, and had 


180 Christ the Light of the World. 

one convert. It is slow work; but the work in 
Japan, my friends, is not slower than in the days 
of the apostles. It is said by those who have 
carefully looked into the matter that more has 
been done in Japan in the last half century than 
was accomplished in all Europe in the first hun¬ 
dred years. I do not say in all Asia and Eu¬ 
rope, but in all Europe. Paul and Silas crossed 
over into Macedonia and began work in Phi¬ 
lippi, the first work in Europe. From that time 
on until the end of the century it is said that not 
as much was accomplished in all Europe as has 
been accomplished in Japan in the last fifty 
years. It required about four hundred years to 
convert Great Britain to nominal Christianity. 
The Christian religion entered that island about 
the end of the second century, but it was not 
till some four hundred years later that they were 
nominally Christian. 

Seventy-five per cent of the believers in Japan 
have been won during the last ten years. Dur¬ 
ing the forty years previous very little was ac¬ 
complished in the matter of visible results for 
very apparent reasons. The workers were en¬ 
gaged in laying what are called “foundations” 
—getting ready for the work. Here is a little 
book that in itself represents about twenty 



Christ the Light of the World. 181 

years’ labor. The translation of the New Tes¬ 
tament and the Old Testament together re¬ 
quired about twenty-eight years. Then, again, 
work among a heathen people is necessarily 
slower than it is among a people that have been 
brought up in the atmosphere of the Christian 
religion. Take, for instance, a heathen. You 
talk to him about “Kami,” the word for 
4 ‘ God,’ 9 but he may take you to mean such kami 
as I have been showing you here on the table. 
The first thought that comes into his head is 
Shaka-Muni; or maybe it is the goddess of 
mercy, Kwannon, or possibly Fudo. Such as 
these are all the gods he knows anything about, 
and it may require weeks, or even months, or a 
year, to get his mind clear on the subject of 
God. There is possibly a year’s work on this 
one truth that would not be necessary in a land 
like ours, as you can talk to any of these little 
children here about God, and they will know 
what you mean. They have never been en¬ 
tangled in idolatry. Speak to the heathen also 
about Christ. Who is Christ? Then there is 
another long explanation about who Christ is. 
Speak to the heathen about the Holy Spirit. 
There is another strange subject to him. Every 
religious term must be explained and reex- 


182 Christ the Light of the World. 

plained carefully to him, line upon line, pre¬ 
cept upon precept, here a little and there a lit¬ 
tle, making it necessarily slow work. However, 
at the present time it is not as slow in Japan as 
it used to be. The Christian religion is pub¬ 
licly known, and the meaning of the word 
“Kami,” as used by the native believer and 
the missionaries, is now generally understood; 
and whenever the people hear a Christian be¬ 
liever talking about Kami, the average Jap¬ 
anese understands who is meant, and it does 
not refer to his gods, but to the God of the uni¬ 
verse. The work has reached the point now 
where we are finding some material that is par¬ 
tially prepared to enter the kingdom; every lit¬ 
tle while men and women are coming and ask¬ 
ing to be baptized. 

Granting, though, that all of these fields are 
hard fields in which to work, that does not pre¬ 
sent any sort of obstacle against entering them. 
It is a false conception, beloved friends, for us 
to suppose that because a field is a hard field 
we ought not to enter it. I suppose conditions 
when Jesus was on earth were, to say the least 
of it, no better than they are now. I am very 
sure the facts would show that they were worse, 
and that the world was steeped in heathenism 


Christ the Light of the World. 183 

as deep as it is to-day. He knew what it meant 
to present his message to a heathen people, yet 
he, nevertheless, said to his disciples: “Go ye 
into all the world, and preach the gospel to the 
whole creation.’’ Beloved friends, when Jesus 
said, “Go ye into all the world,” he probably 
did not mean to stay at home and argue against 
it. There it stands to-day just as it was when 
he gave it, and I believe that you and I are un¬ 
der just as much obligation to-day to carry out 
the purpose of Jesus and to answer to his or¬ 
ders and go as were the first Christians. 
“Why,” says one, “didn’t the apostles fulfill 
that command?” Study their history and you 
will see that, so far as the apostles were con¬ 
cerned personally, they did not. It was the 
church that went forward preaching the word 
in the beginning, the rank and file of the church, 
and the apostles remained hack in Jerusalem, 
and it has ever been the case from that day 
unto this. For four centuries the church spread 
abroad throughout the Roman Empire carrying 
this message. This is the order to-day, and 
God has laid it upon us, dear friends, to go for¬ 
ward to all parts of the earth and carry his mes¬ 
sage to those who have not heard it. 



184 Christ the Light of the World. 


Mission Fields Compared. 

■< 

Though the gospel, as history will show, has 
sometimes leaped from one nation to another 
at a single bound, leaving much intervening ter¬ 
ritory untouched, let us suppose, as some do, 
that it has and shall always proceed in regular 
succession from one adjacent country to an¬ 
other. On this supposition we will take as our 
starting point the city of Nashville, one of the 
greatest religious centers of the churches of 
Christ in the world. Nashville shall be our Je¬ 
rusalem; Tennessee, our Judea; the United 
States, our Samaria; and the rest of the world, 
“the uttermost part of the earth.” “Jerusa¬ 
lem,” with a population of 145,000, has 43 
preachers, or one preacher to every 3,372 people. 
There are enough preachers in Nashville, then, 
to preach daily to every man, woman, and child 
in the city. 

The State of Tennessee has 249 preachers who 
are considered faithful, loyal men. Dividing 
that number into the population of Tennessee, 
it gives to each preacher 8,623 to preach to. 
One man could preach to that many very easily 
in eight or ten days. The State of Tennessee 
has two male missionaries in a foreign land. 


Christ the Light of the World. 185 


(Two others are there from Kentucky and 
Iowa.) In that foreign land alone there are 
about 50,000,000 people, or to each missionary 
12,500,000, while back in our own State there 
are only 8,623 people to the preacher. See what 
a difference! Some difference between 8,623 
and 12,500,000. Let us consider “Samaria” 
and see how well it is supplied with the gospel. 
In the United States there are about 1,719 
preachers, or one to about every 48,000 people. 
It is estimated that one man, with such workers 
as he will raise up, can reach 50,000 in a genera¬ 
tion ; and now the effort is being made to supply 
at least one missionary to every 50,000 people. 
At present the churches of Christ have in Japan 
only one to 12,500,000. That being the case, we 
are not doing as much as we ought. This does 
not take into consideration the greater problem. 
Including other heathen lands, there are China, 
India, and the islands of the Pacific that have 
not less than 800,000,000 other heathen, and the 
churches of Christ in America have not a single 
missionary among them. Now, there is some¬ 
thing in this short of our obligation to go to 
the whole human race. We ought to consider 
it seriously. We should wake up to the situa¬ 
tion and begin to think about somebody going, 


186 Christ the Light of the World. 

for that is the only way it can be done. Dear 
friends, somebody must go. There is no sub¬ 
stitute for this that I know anything about, and 
this means somebody prepared to go, somebody 
willing to go, somebody able to go; it means 
consecrated men and women that will go forth 
into these heathen lands and set forth the mes¬ 
sage from heaven in the proper way, men and 
women that have the depth of character which 
can stand against the trials and temptations 
that come against them. Until you enter into 
it you will hardly realize what it means. Here 
is a man in this congregation, for instance, who 
is considered a good man. He has a good repu¬ 
tation, and everybody knows him as a good man. 
Away over yonder in the heathen land by him¬ 
self he discovers a defect in his make-up he 
did not know he had. While back yonder in 
Nashville, meeting with those good people at 
Foster Street, he was as a soldier in the midst 
of the forces and upheld by those around him; 
placed over yonder, he must stand alone or fall. 
There is great need for men and women that, 
by the Lord’s grace, can go forth and live and 
labor among a non-Christian people and stand 
for God. Let us work and pray that we may 
have more and more of them rising up to say: 


Christ the Light of the World. 187 

‘'‘Lord, here am I; send me.” May we have 
more that are willing to step forward and say: 
“I’ll go where yon want me to go, dear Lord; 
I ’ll be what yon want me to be. ’ 9 

Rise, ye Christians, brave and true, 

There is work for all to do; 

Let God’s banner be unfurled 
To every nation of the world. 


188 Christ the Light of the World. 


THE GRACE OF GIVING. 


“Know ye not that they that minister about 
sacred things eat of the things of the temple, 
and they that wait upon the altar have their 
portion with the altar? Even so did the Lord 
ordain that they that proclaim the gospel should 
live of the gospel. ’ ’ (1 Cor. 9:13,14.) 

One evening last week a brother came to me 
and said: “What are you going to speak about 
Sunday morning V’ I replied that I had not 
decided on the subject, and he said that a cer¬ 
tain one in the congregation had asked him the 
question, ‘ ‘ Why can’t Foster Street send a mis¬ 
sionary ? ’’ and he suggested that I take up a line 
of thought bearing on that idea. Another 
brother said the reason why Foster Street has 
not done more for foreign work is because the 
matter has not been brought before the church 
as forcibly and as vividly as it might have been. 

Thus I am in the happy position this morn¬ 
ing of speaking by request on the subject of 
giving—not that I would disparage any other 



Christ the Light of the World. 189 


line of Christian work, yon understand, because 
God expects us to carry on all lines of work, and 
one is just as important as the other. 

I believe, however, that there ought to he 
more practical teaching in regard to giving. I 
am afraid that we preachers sermonize too 
much, dealing with the abstract and the doc¬ 
trinal, leaving the churches somewhat at sea as 
to what they ought to do and how to do it. My 
idea is that we should make our religion thor¬ 
oughly practical, for a religion that cannot he 
practiced is worthless. Giving, properly con¬ 
sidered, becomes a delight. 

What the Denominations are Doing. 

Now, in order to give you some idea of what 
we are capable of doing, I want to give you a 
few items that I received from the secretary of 
the Methodist Church, South, a short time ago. 
I wrote him, asking for figures showing how 
many of the churches in the Methodist Church, 
South, were supporting a missionary in foreign 
fields. He very kindly gives me these figures. 
At the top he says: “Statistics of the Board 
of the Methodist Church, South, exclusive of 
women’s work, either in money or missiona¬ 
ries.’’ He says: “One individual gives to the 


190 Christ the Light of the World. 

cause of missions annually a thousand dollars; 
one individual gave to the cause of missions in 
1909 three thousand dollars; fifteen individuals 
support each a missionary; twelve districts 
support each a missionary; two Conference Ep- 
worth Leagues support each a missionary; five 
Epworth Leagues support each a missionary; 
two District Epworth Leagues support each a 
missionary; Sunday schools of four districts 
support each a missionary; nine Sunday schools 
support each a missionary; one Sunday school 
class supports a missionary; one Sunday school 
association supports a missionary; one college 
supports a missionary; seventy-seven churches 
each support a missionary. Including their 
wives, there are two hundred and seventeen mis¬ 
sionaries now in the foreign field. There are 
one hundred and twenty-nine missionaries sup¬ 
ported by individuals or single institutions, and, 
in addition to this, there are others supported 
in the regular way, making a total of two hun¬ 
dred and seventeen missionaries on the foreign 
field. One hundred and eight native traveling 
preachers are in the foreign field; one hundred 
and sixty-five local preachers in the foreign 
field; twenty-one self-supporting churches in 
the foreign field. In the foreign field 25,210 


Christ the Light of the World. 191 

members raised for foreign missions from all 
sources in 1909, $624,452.19. In addition to the 
above, we have supported by specials ninety na¬ 
tive helpers in Korea at one hundred dollars 
each; thirty-five scholarships in Anglo-Korean 
colleges at twenty-five dollars each; forty-five 
scholarships in two schools in China at twenty- 
five dollars each; fifteen scholarships in Col- 
legio-Wesleyano, San Luis Potosi, Mexico, at 
seventy-five dollars each; fifteen or more schol¬ 
arships in the theological school, Kwansei Ga- 
kuin [Japan], at fifty dollars each; twelve or 
fifteen in the Hitoshima Girls’ School [also in 
Japan] at fifty dollars each; twenty scholar¬ 
ships in the Lambuth Memorial Bible Training 
School at fifty dollars each.; and other miscella¬ 
neous specials. ’ ’ 

Now, the point I make is this: What the 
Methodist people are able to do in the way of 
support, we are able to do. What a Methodist 
church is able to do, a church of Christ is able 
to do. Of course, now, no one will conclude 
that I indorse all of these various outside organ¬ 
izations, but I wish to emphasize the fact that 
we are just as capable of doing the work 
through the church as they are through some 
other organization; and, moreover, if seventy- 


192 Christ the Light of the World. 

seven Methodist churches of the Southern 
Methodist Church have seventy-seven mission¬ 
aries in foreign fields, why not seventy-seven 
churches of Christ have at least that many? 

I might refer to other denominations which 
could make a similar showing to the one I have 
referred to. It is not necessary, though, to go 
over details like that, for it would be repeating 
the same thing pretty much; but take, for ex¬ 
ample, what the Congregationalist people are 
doing. Their work in foreign fields is just one 
hundred years old. Since 1810, including both 
men and women, they have given as mission¬ 
aries to the foreign field 2,572 workers. They 
have to-day 581 workers in foreign lands. They 
gave last year $947,163.21 to foreign missions. 
Native converts number 73,671. These con¬ 
verts gave to the work in 1909, $260,000. 

Personal Mention. 

I hope to be excused for referring to my own 
experience in regard to giving, because I do not 
do it as a matter of boasting, but simply to show 
what we may do, and yet live—and live in com¬ 
parative comfort, too. For example, last year 
I received from all sources $1,637.93. I spent 
for traveling $300.17. I gave to the work in 


Christ the Light of the World. 193 


America and Japan, $232.69. Of this traveling 
money, $102.50 was spent on the sea, being the 
cost of my ticket from Yokohama to San Fran¬ 
cisco. The rest was spent in coming from Cal¬ 
ifornia to Kentucky and Tennessee, and in going 
about from place to place. Now, the total that 
I spent last year in the work was $532.86, or 
about one-third of my income, and I have lived 
and supported my family—a wife and three chil¬ 
dren, all the children being in school, which, as 
you know, is rather expensive. 

“Well,” says one, “I don’t believe in blow¬ 
ing one’s own trumpet like that; it looks to me 
like you are not following what Jesus taught 
when he said: ‘ Let not thy left hand know what 
thy right hand doeth.’ ” Let us turn back to 
what Jesus does say back there in Matthew. In 
regard to praying, he says: “But thou, when 
thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, 
and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father 
who is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in 
secret shall recompense thee.” Now, if we fol¬ 
low literally this instruction in regard to pray¬ 
ing, as we are inclined to in regard to giving, 
we would never pray in a public assembly like 
this at all, and yet we all feel that it is perfectly 
right to do so. Hence, in regard to praying, we 
14 


194 Christ the Light of the World. 

see that we must look at the spirit of prayer. 
We must not go out there on the street corner, 
like the Pharisees did, and make long prayers 
to be heard of men and have our flowing robes 
on to be seen of men. That was what Jesus was 
opposing. Even so in regard to giving. He 
says not to give to be seen of men. Do not let 
that be your object. And I do not believe I have 
repeated these figures in regard to my own ex¬ 
perience in order to be seen, but simply as an 
example. 

Zaccheus, you know, said to Jesus: “Lord, the 
half of my goods I give to the poor. ’’ Jesus did 
not reprove him, but commended him, and said: 
“To-day is salvation come to this house.’’ So, 
then, on this matter of giving, let us be will¬ 
ing whenever called upon modestly to give the 
facts. 

Now, a missionary’s position is a little deli¬ 
cate. If he does not report at all, some one will 
say he is amassing a fortune over yonder. If 
he reports $1,637.93, and does not give an ac¬ 
count of where it goes, they will say: “That is 
too much for a missionary; my family does not 
get that much.” If he begins to tell where it 
goes, they say he is sounding a trumpet. So 
it is a little hard for a missionary to please ev- 


Christ the Light of the World. 195 


erybody. In the phraseology of Abraham Lin¬ 
coln: Yon may please some of the people all 
the time, and you may please all the people some 
of the time, but you cannot please all of the peo¬ 
ple all the time. Common honesty requires that 
a missionary make reports, and make full, fair, 
and honest reports, and in doing this he must 
tell where his money goes. Especially is this 
true of the missionary. Brother Smith or 
Brother Jones lives here in your midst and 
preaches for the people right around in the com¬ 
munity. He goes in and out among you con¬ 
stantly; and if he is not so particular to get up 
and give an account of what he has received, 
you do not call him to account for it, for you 
see how he is living and you know about what 
he is getting. However, I believe this would 
be a good practice for every preacher to follow. 
Be this as it may, the missionary across the sea 
eight or ten thousand miles from his home land 
is not seen by the people who support him, and 
they are entirely dependent upon his reports, 
and there is no recourse but for him to give a 
full report of all he receives, but in doing so he 
will have to do as I have done and tell where 
the money goes. 

Now you have seen where what I received 


196 Christ the Light of the World. 


last year went. You have seen that almost a 
third of it went for the Lord’s work in various 
ways, and yet I have been able to support my¬ 
self and those depending on me. 

Well, what I can do, beloved friends, you can 
do, anybody can do. It is not a special case 
nor a peculiar condition, but it is just such a 
course as anybody can follow. 

Should Teach Our Children to Give. 

We ought also to teach the little folks the 
habit of giving. Get them into the habit of it 
when they are young, and teach them that they 
should “enter into his gates with thanksgiving 
[“a thank offering”—margin], and into his 
courts with praise, ’ ’ so, when they grow up to he 
grown people, it will be a part of their nature. 
Now, I have a hoy and two girls, and I know it is 
a good thing for children to teach them to give 
to a worthy cause. Take your boy, for instance, 
and say to him: “Tommy, it is not so good for 
you to run to the picture show and spend a 
nickel or a dime every day or two; no need for 
you to he buying chewing gum and every little 
foolish thing like that. I will get a savings 
bank for you, put it up there on the mantle, and 
you can drop your little earnings into it. This 


Christ the Light of the World. 197 

will be mucli better than wasting everything 
that comes into your hands. ’ ’ But, my friends, 
if you get your boy to put his money into the 
savings bank without having a worthy object— 
if you just get him to put it in the saving bank 
and merely teach him to love the money for its 
own sake, it will make a miser out of him, and, 
when he gets to be a grown man, he will be pil¬ 
ing up his money without a purpose. It will 
become to him what the fellow’s gold did as he 
was returning from the Klondike. The ship 
struck a rock and began to sink. Quickly ty¬ 
ing his gold around his waist, he leaped in and 
tried to swim ashore, but the weight of the gold 
sunk him to the bottom of the sea. But you 
teach your boy or your girl that there is some¬ 
thing in the world for that boy or that girl to 
do, that those extra nickels and pennies are for 
a purpose, and that they ought not to waste 
them, but should lay them aside for something 
that is worthy—for the assistance of the neg¬ 
lected and the poor—then you are giving a dou¬ 
ble blessing to your children. You are teach¬ 
ing them lessons in economy that will bless 
them in later years, and you are teaching 
them also to have fellowship and love for their 
fellows. 


198 Christ the Light of the World. 


Where to Find the Missionary Offering. 

I know just what it is for a church to be 
spoken to about this matter of increasing its 
offering. It is often the case that a congrega¬ 
tion is doing a commendable work; and when 
another matter is presented, the church begins 
to feel that this is an extra burden that they are 
hardly able to bear, and they see no way to do 
more. Now, before deciding that you cannot do 
it, ask yourself this question: “Am I giving as 
much as the Lord directs—that is, am I giving 
not less than a tenth of my income !” I do not 
believe the Lord will excuse us with less; and 
if you are not coming up to this amount, then 
you are not doing as much as you ought to do, 
not as much as you can do, and live comfort¬ 
ably besides. If you are giving a tenth, as some 
of you are, still do not be too hasty to cast aside 
the problem of increasing your usefulness, be¬ 
cause still you may be able to do something 
that will not injure you. Cast up in your mind 
like this: ‘ ‘ I am giving one-tenth, it is true, but 
what am I doing with this nine-tenths! Am I 
spending part of it for something that does me 
no good! Could I not occasionally save a car 
fare by walking by starting ten or fifteen min- 


Christ the Light of the World. 199 


utes earlier to my place of business? The ex¬ 
ercise three times a week would do me good.” 
Fifteen cents a week would make sixty cents a 
month—$7.80 a year. This would he a hand¬ 
some sum for the average Christian to make to 
foreign missions, and would be no extra draw 
on his purse; besides, he would come out at the 
end of the year with a better stomach and 
stronger muscles for having done it. Could you 
not leave off coffee? My brother in the flesh 
said that he had to leave off coffee because he 
found it was injuring him; and, in fact, when¬ 
ever you meet a coffee drinker, you meet a man 
that is injuring himself, whether he finds it out 
or not. A brother down in Florida said that he 
decided he did not need coffee, and gave it up. 
“Now,” said he, “I am able to give six dollars 
a year more to the Lord’s cause.” Think what 
it would amount to if the whole church should 
do that! At the end of the year you would be 
far better off physically, and you would be much 
more satisfied in your heart to know that, in¬ 
stead of drinking it down just to satisfy an ab¬ 
normal appetite, you were giving it for the ben¬ 
efit of the lost. The cost of many a human soul 
goes down the throat or on the back of pro- 


200 Christ the Light of the World. 


fessed Christians, only to do them bodily injury 
or inflate their vanity. 

Another brother in Florida said, when asked 
about it (he did not voluntarily tell me that), 
including his family, he spent fifty dollars a 
year for tobacco. Every one of them used it— 
his old mother used it, his sister used it, his boy 
used it, his nephew used it. Fifty dollars a 
year! I said: “Brother, do you give that much 
to the Lord in a year?’’ “Well,” he says, “I 
will have to be straight with you; I don’t do 
it. ’ ’ Now, if you are going to be filthy, beloved 
friends, and stick to that habit, you ought at 
least to give as much to God as you spend to 
satisfy a depraved appetite. You ought to do 
at least that much. I think you ought to do 
a good deal more: you ought to quit it. There 
is absolutely no excuse for it. What would that 
mean ? Why, that would mean for many of the 
churches the support of a missionary. The av¬ 
erage church throughout our land, dear friends, 
of from two to three hundred members, is spend¬ 
ing annually all the way from $300 to $1,000 for 
tobacco—the church members, mind you. It is 
a pretty serious thing, dear friends, to spend 
this money just to be burnt up and puffed out, 
or chewed up and spit out, leaving its filth and 


Christ the Light of the World. 201 


disease behind, while the souls of men are per¬ 
ishing for want of the bread of life. The Amer¬ 
ican people are spending annually $20,000,000 
for chewing gum, $80,000,000 for theaters, $700,- 
000,000 for tobacco, $1,000,000,000 for grog, and 
only $5,000,000 for missions. 

Says one: “I just cannot quit tobacco.’ ’ You 
are mistaken about that. It is just like a cer¬ 
tain brother said: “I tried several times to quit 
tobacco, and I would fall back into the habit 
every little while; but Brother Young, down in 
Texas, preached a sermon once, and before he 
got through that sermon I had made up my 
mind—1 had made it up—and I said then and 
there, ‘I am done with tobacco;’ and,” he added, 
“whenever a man makes up his mind to quit a 
habit, his battle is fought and won. I have had 
no more trouble since.” The trouble was, be¬ 
fore, you know, he was just trying to quit, and 
was saying to himself: “I don’t know whether 
I can quit or not, but I believe I will try and 
see.” In other words, he was saying: “Good- 
by, old fellow; I may have to come back and see 
you again. ’ ’ Some time ago a brother said: “ I 
have tried to quit four or five times.” I said 
to him: “You have tried too often; one time 
is enough.” 


202 Christ the Light of the World. 

I might go on and mention a great many other 
things that we are practicing, dear friends, that 
are a positive injury to us, which, if we would 
quit, would so fill the treasury for foreign mis¬ 
sionary purposes that we ourselves would he 
surprised. 

Why Not? 

“Well,” says a brother, “I don’t believe in 
preaching so much on this matter of giving. It 
seems to me that preachers are begging too 
much. ’’ I am not begging. I want you to un¬ 
derstand that. I am trying to teach you your 
duty, and I want to give you this suggestion: 
Here is the Lord’s Supper. In a short while we 
are going to pass around the bread on the plate, 
and you think that is right—and it is right. 
Now, why should it he thought out of place for 
the Lord’s contribution plate to be passed 
around also to every member every Lord’s day? 
The same Book which says that “upon the 
first day of the week” they came together to 
break bread, says, also: “Upon the first day of 
the week let each one of you lay by him in store, 
as he may prosper. ” It is not an irksome task, 
my dear friends. You have the wrong idea 
about it. It is one of those pleasant duties that 
the Christian has which he should regard as a 


Christ the Light of the World. 203 


privilege. I cannot say just how you feel about 
it, but, as for myself, I want no man to come to 
me and say that I ought not to give. I would 
consider that a calamity and a privation to 
which no Christian ought to be subjected. And 
just here allow me to suggest that the preacher 
who, for fear of criticism or of becoming unpop¬ 
ular, will evade the subject of giving in the pul¬ 
pit, is just as guilty before God as he who de¬ 
clines to declare the whole counsel of God in 
teaching sinners what to do to be saved. 

Not only this, dear friends, but if you give not 
less than a tenth of your daily earnings for 
God’s purposes, the remaining nine-tenths will 
do you a greater service, will be a greater bless¬ 
ing to you, than the ten-tenths spent or kept. 
The very fact of your setting apart a portion of 
your income for the Lord’s service will so 
strengthen your character and will so fortify 
you against the many temptations that are all 
around about you to spend your money foolishly 
that you will find the nine-tenths will go further 
than the ten-tenths; and I say, further, that the 
man who gives one-fifth will get more out of 
the four-fifths than he would have gotten out of 
the nine-tenths. Economizing for God helps 


204 Christ the Light of the World. 

one to form the habit of economizing for him¬ 
self. 

Must Get All to Giving. 

But here is the main trouble about nearly ev¬ 
ery congregation, and it is much the same thing 
everywhere I go. I could pick out, for instance, 
a dozen here in this congregation that are giv¬ 
ing liberally; but you take out that dozen, and 
the rest make hut little effort. They are very 
likely like I used to be. For eleven years I met 
from week to week with the brethren, and what 
I had I would throw in; and if I did not happen 
to have it, I would not throw it in. I made no 
special effort to be prepared. That was not 
right. I am glad I have repented. I watch my 
account just as carefully to see if my gifts to 
the Lord come up to at least a tenth as I watch 
my grocery bills, and I believe every Christian 
should do the same. The elders should appoint 
suitable ones to make a personal canvass of ev¬ 
ery derelict member and exhort each one to do 
his duty, nor rest till the end is accomplished. 
I fear some of the elders themselves would need 
a little waiting on. 

We must get all the members to giving. We 
must get all of the boys back there to save their 
nickels and dimes that they foolishly waste and 


Christ the Light of the World. 205 

turn them into the Lord’s treasury. We must 
get these girls to do this. We must get those 
that have fallen into the rut of neglect to turn 
over a new leaf, and say: “I am going to run 
an account with the Lord.” Those who are 
stirred up on the subject and who are doing 
their duty should take the time to go to see 
those brothers and sisters personally. Go right 
to their homes, let them know what you have 
come for, and say: “Now, brother, give as 
you are prospered. Set aside a portion of your 
income. How much are you willing to give? 
One cent in the dollar—one per cent? Will you 
give one-twentieth—five cents in the dollar? 
Well, give that, and he sure that you do it. If 
you are not there next Lord’s day, send it, or 
put it in a box at home and bring it next Lord’s 
day. Instead of a nickel, bring a dime. Thus 
go to every brother in the church, and in pa¬ 
tience and kindness impress upon them that 
covetousness is idolatry and neglect a sin. 

Well, I believe if we would go to the brethren 
on this subject, just as we go to the brethren 
when they have fallen away or done something 
else wrong, and plead with them and talk with 
them, we would see wonderful results, and it 
would not be very long until we would see the 


206 Christ the Light of the World. 

whole church giving—giving as the Lord di¬ 
rects. They must also be taught to love God 
and his work more, for people give to what they 
love. Of course, this takes time. 

Giving Time. 

Now let us consider the question of giving 
some of our time to God. It takes time to build 
up a church and save souls. If you think you 
can live a Christian and just plunge into your 
business by daylight Monday morning and come 
out late Saturday night, and think of the Lord 
just a very little on Sunday, you are greatly 
mistaken. You must think about the Lord 
oftener than that. David speaks of the godly 
man, and says: “On his law doth he meditate 
day and night.’’ 

Over in Korea there is a great religious awak¬ 
ening among the natives. In the early part of 
this year they had meetings at different places 
for the purpose of considering whether or not 
during the year they would he able to convert 
a million people. That is the task they have 
set for themselves. Here is one way they are 
trying to accomplish it. At one of the meetings 
it was proposed that those present who were 
willing to do so give a definite amount of their 





Christ the Light of the World. 207 


time to teaching their neighbors and fellow- 
countrymen about Christ. The writer says: “I 
was amazed at the marvelous response to the 
appeal. Sometimes there would be ten or fif¬ 
teen or more men on their feet at once eager 
to call out their days of service. A merchant 
arose and said: ‘I am going to do this work con¬ 
tinually, but I will devote my entire time to it 
for one week of every month, making twenty- 
one days during the next quarter.’ [Now the 
period in which they were to give a portion of 
their time was a period of ninety days.] A boat¬ 
man said he would give sixty days to the Lord 
during the three months. A third declared he 
would give every day, save Sunday, when he 
wanted to attend church himself! Another said 
he could only give three full days, hut he was 
going to preach every day, no matter where he 
was. A traveling merchant said he was going 
to preach all along the road, but would give six 
entire days. One man aroused enthusiasm by 
saying that he would devote sixty of the ninety 
days to the Lord, and would keep on in this wav 
until the million souls were won. At length the 
blind man arose—the one who had walked 
twenty miles to he present—and said he would 
give the entire ninety days to the work. One 


208 Christ the Light of the World. 


of the women delegates said she could only 
promise six days, bnt she was going to preach 
to every one that she met. The total number 
of days promised was twenty-seven hundred and 
twenty-one days, or the equivalent of one man 
preaching Christ constantly for seven years, 
seven months, and five days. ’’ 

Then, in order to get all the members to 
work, how would it do—say, at least once every 
month—for the whole church to turn out and 
give one complete day to the Lord in an earnest 
endeavor to stir up all the brethren and get 
them to giving. Every one who is giving up 
to his duty, or giving approximately up to it, 
let him go out to those who neglect to give once 
a month or once a year. Or if there is any¬ 
thing else the church is lacking in, let all turn 
out and devote at least a whole day to it. May¬ 
be you have not evangelized the community as 
you ought. Take a day in each month and go 
out and distribute tracts and literature and talk 
to the people, and put in the whole day just like 
you would in your business. That would do us 
as much good as others. We are becoming so 
engaged with the affairs of this world over here 
in America that it is very hard for us to remem¬ 
ber the Lord or serve him as we ought. 


Christ the Light of the World. 209 

Take, for instance, the Jews. The Lord de¬ 
manded of every Israelite that when sundown 
came on Friday, the hoe must he put away, the 
plow laid aside, and everything put in readi¬ 
ness for the Sabbath—not even a fire was to 
be kindled. It was a day of absolute rest. 
Now, I tell you that would strain the nerves of 
some of us American people, wouldn’t it, to 
have to rest full twenty-four hours and not even 
cook a meal, but eat cold victuals ? That is not 
all. Every seventh year was the sabbatical 
year; and when the six years were rounded up 
with the last day of the old year, everything was 
in readiness by the Israelitish family, not sim¬ 
ply for a day’s rest, but for a whole year’s rest. 
Yes, sir! They were not even to plant, not to 
till the soil, not even to gather the fruit that 
grew of itself, but they were just simply to rest 
a whole year. Now, I tell you that would strain 
the nerves of us people in America, sure enough, 
wouldn’t it? Why, you would hear such a wail 
going up in this country as never was heard 
before if such a thing as that were laid upon us. 
A twelve months’ rest! And yet the Jewish 
people prospered and were blessed—blessed 
spiritually and blessed in their storehouses and 
in their barns. 

15 


210 Christ the Light of the World. 


I believe the same God is over spiritual Israel 
to-day that ruled over natural Israel in an¬ 
cient times, and I am confident that, if we are 
willing to give a portion of our time to the 
Lord’s service, he is watching us and will pros¬ 
per us in our daily affairs, and bring us out all 
right at the end of the month and the end of 
the year the same as he did his ancient people. 

Down where I grew up, some of my neighbors, 
’way back when I was a boy, would haul their 
produce here to Nashville, and, in order not to 
lose too much time from their crops or their 
business on the farm, they would hitch up Fri¬ 
day morning, get here in time to sell out Sat¬ 
urday night, and spend the Lord’s day on the 
way home, in order to save a day and get back 
Tuesday instead of Wednesday. 

I have watched those men, and they have not 
prospered, neither do they stand high as men 
of character. 

But, on the other hand, whenever you are will¬ 
ing to serve God, he is going to build you up* 
in every respect—build up your character and 
build up your prosperity. 

Now this matter of giving, beloved friends, 
is called by Paul the “grace of giving.” It is 
a Christian privilege, and we ought so to culti- 


Christ the Light of the World. 211 

vate the habit of giving that it may bless ns as 
well as others; make it a part of our daily life, 
and look upon it just as we look upon anything 
else that pertains to the development of Chris¬ 
tian character; and when we give to any pur¬ 
pose, let us remember that we are not holding 
a few cents at arm’s length to get rid of people, 
but let us give ourselves with the gift. Let it 
be known that your heart goes with it, and that 
it is simply an expression of your interest in 
that person. 

“ Not thy gift, but thyself, with others share; 

For the gift without the giver is bare. 

He who gives in love always blesses three— 
Himself, his worthy neighbor, and me.” 


212 Christ the Light of the World. 


THE REFLEX INFLUENCE OF MISSIONS 
ON THE HOME CHURCHES. 


“ There is that scattereth, and increaseth yet 
more; and there is that withholdeth more than 
is meet, but it tendeth only to want. The lib¬ 
eral soul shall be made fat; and he that water- 
eth shall be watered also himself.’ 9 (Prov. 11: 
24, 25.) 

I was in a certain home not a great while ago, 
and on the wall of the room where I slept was 
a map. All over the map were the faces of men. 
These men were the agents of the Brown Shoe 
Company, in the city of St. Louis. At the top 
of the map were the words: “St. Louis our 
home; the world our territory.” This great 
shoe company represents thousands of dollars, 
and has agents pushing its business into distant 
countries. It has discovered that the way to 
become great and wealthy at home is to extend 
its business throughout the world. 

You will notice on a map of the world, in 
the northwest corner of Europe, a little island 



Christ the Light of the World. 213 

country consisting of England and Scotland. It 
is not a large country. You could easily cover 
it, as it appears on the map, with your hand; 
but across that country is written, “ Great 
Britain.” What is it that has made this little 
country great, for it justly has that title? 
There may be several factors that have united 
to make it great, but one is that England has 
been a colonizing country. She has planted her¬ 
self in all parts of the world. Wherever you 
go to-day, you find Englishmen; and that world¬ 
wide empire boasts of the fact that the sun never 
sets on her possessions. England has spent 
millions of men and millions of money to trans¬ 
plant herself in every part of the world. But 
she has the greatest city at home on the face 
of the globe. England to-day is a world-wide 
power—the greatest power of earth. I know 
the people of the United States like to think of 
this country as being the greatest country in 
the world, and in some respects this may be 
true, but an impartial judgment will, I think, 
concede that, so far as world-wide influence 
goes, England has the lead, because England is 
world-wide. As to power and prestige at home, 
also, she is second to none; she is great and pow- 


214 Christ the Light of the World. 


erful at home because she is great and powerful 
abroad. 

What is true of the great shoe company at 
St. Louis and the great empire of England is 
preeminently true of the kingdom of God. It 
is destined to be a great world-wide kingdom. 
This has been its purpose from the beginning, 
and its greatness has increased according to its 
universality. Just as nations to-day find it nec¬ 
essary to have open doors for their commerce, 
and to enter into commercial treaties with all 
the leading nations of the earth, that they may 
have free course for international trade, even 
so must the church have open doors for her reli¬ 
gion ; and I am glad to see that in the goodness 
of Providence all the doors are opening and the 
Lord’s people are waking up to the fact that 
they must enter in and do business for our God. 

Jacob Riis says: “Every dollar contributed 
for foreign missions releases ten dollars’ worth 
of energy for dealing with the tasks at our own 
doors.” This is very strikingly illustrated in 
the case of the Presbyterian people. Last year 
forty-eight churches of that denomination gave 
on an average of four dollars per member, and 
these forty-eight churches had double as much 


Christ the Light of the World. 215 

increase in membership as the church as a whole 
had. 

Again, I remember that eighteen years ago, 
when we were on our way to Japan, we stopped 
in Los Angeles, Cal. It was my pleasure and 
privilege to stop with a brother there who took 
a lively interest in us as outgoing missionaries. 
From that day he and the congregation where 
he worships have taken an active part in the 
work in Japan. At first they gave only a par¬ 
tial support for a missionary. By and by they 
said they would support a missionary entirely, 
and for the last ten or twelve years this congre¬ 
gation has been supporting their own mission¬ 
ary in Japan. 

Last July a year ago I was in the home of 
this same brother, and he told me about the 
work they were doing in Los Angeles. In ad¬ 
dition to the work in Japan, they have a mission 
for the Japanese in Los Angeles, and a worker 
employed to teach them daily the word of God. 
Also, he said they had two missions among the 
white people and one mission church estab¬ 
lished for the colored people of the city. [The 
church now has three white missions, two col¬ 
ored, one for the Japanese in Los Angeles and 
one in Japan-seven in all.] “When I lived 


216 Christ the Light of the World. 


back in Tennessee,” be added, “I never realized 
that I was under any obligation to the negroes. 
After coming out here I was reminded of that 
fact, and now I am trying to redeem lost time.” 
Afterwards, when I was in Clarksville, which 
was once the home of that brother, they told 
me he had built a house and paid a preacher a 
whole year to establish the work there among 
the colored people. This illustrates how, when 
people become interested in work abroad, it 
quickens their interest in work at their own 
doors. This brother did not go into details as 
to how he had his eyes opened to those at home, 
but it is so natural and plain that an explana¬ 
tion was not needed. For instance, his atten¬ 
tion was called to this distant nation in the East 
—a nation now of over fifty million people— 
which was without the gospel of Christ. He 
felt like something ought to be done, and he 
gave of his means to help send the gospel to 
them. Having taken this step, he began to look 
around, and, finally, to say: “Here are many of 
those same people at our own doors. They are 
as worthy of our attention and assistance as 
those across the sea.’ ’ Hence the home mission 
among the Japanese of Los Angeles. Having 
taken this second step, he looks around again, 


Christ the Light of the World. 217 


and says: ‘ ‘ Here are black folks just as worthy 
of our attention and help as the brown people 
across the sea. Not only so, but they can speak 
our language, and we can more readily approach 
them than those having a foreign tongue and 
customs differing from our own.’ ’ And the in¬ 
evitable conclusion was that he ought to do 
something for the black people. Having be¬ 
come interested in a mission for the brown and 
the black people, he would naturally say: “If it 
is my duty to help those of other nationalities, 
it is my duty to help those of my own nation . 9 9 
As a result, there are also two missions for the 
white people in that city, making a total of five 
missions in all for this church. [Now seven.] 
On the other hand, beloved, suppose that man 
eighteen years ago had taken a negative posi¬ 
tion, and had said: “Well, I am not much in¬ 
terested in those people across the sea. I hear 
they are treacherous and unreliable, and I 
haven ’t much faith in trying to convert the Jap- 
anese. I think I can employ all my means here 
at home. It is not worth while to send the gos¬ 
pel to the Asiatics . 91 By this act he would have 
thrown out about half the population of the 
world, including India, China, Japan, and Ko¬ 
rea. Then, looking around and seeing the Asi- 


218 Christ the Light of the World. 

atics walking the streets of Los Angeles, he 
would have said: “These are just like those 
brown people over yonder. If they are not 
worthy of attention, these are not. ’ ’ Then, see¬ 
ing the black people, he would have said: ‘‘They 
are no better than the Japanese. We cannot 
depend on them. About all they are fit for is 
to drive mules or dig potatoes, and I don’t think 
it is worth while to bother with them.’ 9 There 
would have gone out again about twelve million 
more of the human race in our own country and 
one hundred and seventy-five million in Africa. 
Having taken these steps, if some man had come 
to him and said, “ There are down here in the 
city hundreds of white people who are neg¬ 
lected, and swarms of children who are growing 
up in ignorance; let us go down there and rent 
a hall and try to do something for them,” he 
most likely would have replied: “I don’t belong 
to that class. I am a prosperous merchant; 
these people are of the lower class; they are a 
shiftless set, always changing about. I don’t 
think it is worth while to try to benefit them. 
I believe in getting hold of men of character; 
no use to try to do good to those of that kind; 
it is wasting time in dealing with folks like 


Cubist the Light of the Wobld. 219 

those yon are talking about.” So he would 
have done nothing. 

Every time, beloved friends, yon lose confi¬ 
dence in a part of the human race, it weakens 
your faith in all mankind, and it is only a mat¬ 
ter of time till you begin to lose confidence in 
yourself. But every time we take a step for 
the benefit of mankind, it matters not who, it 
strengthens us in our own lives and in our own 
efforts, and gives us more confidence in the 
power of the gospel to redeem. 

A certain church in this State for a long time 
had a hard struggle to make ends meet. At the 
end of each year they would come out behind 
with their finances. After a time this church 
was induced to take an active part in helping 
on the work in Japan. I was there last Febru¬ 
ary, and they told me that they not only did not 
come out behind last year, but had a balance 
in their treasury. [Since the above statement 
was made this same congregation has had in 
one series of meetings one hundred and three 
additions. They have already secured a lot on 
which to build a new house.] Do you say that 
you had always thought this missionary work 
was a sort of “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” and 
that every dollar we take to send to the mission- 


220 Christ the Light of the World. 

aries is so much taken from our work at home? 
Then you are mistaken. It is not a matter of 
ability, either in individuals or churches. It is 
a matter of willingness. It is looking around 
and discovering our power to give, an opening 
up of that latent force that we have not yet dis¬ 
covered—a stopping of the waste in life. God’s 
people have an abundance with which to evan¬ 
gelize the world and yet live in comfort, if only 
they will consecrate it to him. But we go 
on accumulating and accumulating above that 
which it takes for a living, only to leave it to 
render ungodly our posterity, who turn it back 
into the hands of the wicked either to squander 
or turn again into some worldly channel, while 
God is thus continually robbed of even millions 
which are his dues. Again, the average Chris¬ 
tian is giving more to-day for the indulgence 
of sinful and injurious habits and questionable 
worldly pleasures than he gives for the spread 
of the gospel. 

Recently I was in the city of Atlanta, and 
there I learned another very striking fact, show¬ 
ing further that interest in the world as a 
whole quickens interest and activity at home. 
Three years ago there was in the city of Atlanta 
a little handful of brethren, about thirty-five in 


Christ the Light of the World. 221 


number, who bad a bard time to keep alive, be¬ 
cause they were trying to help themselves in¬ 
stead of trying to help others. They were just 
nursing their own little, poor, sickly souls to 
death. A brother went in there and said, ‘ i Let 
us turn over a new leaf;” and they did. One 
item on the new leaf was to get interested in the 
people across the sea. They became interested 
in Japan. What effect has that had on the 
work at home? They told me the thirty-five 
had grown to two hundred. The brother who 
works with them said to me that he wanted me 
to stir up the brethren on foreign missions; but 
really I did not need to stir that church much. 
They were stirring already. Not only were 
they giving monthly to a foreign missionary, 
but they have waked up to the home demands 
and are working there in Atlanta, having two 
mission churches in the city. 

I could give you a score of such examples, 
showing that wherever you find a church awake 
to the cause of world-wide missions, you will 
find that church awake to the interests of those 
about its own doors. 

Again turning to the negative side of the 
question for a little while, there is scarcely an 
exception to the rule that where people lose in- 


222 Christ the Light of the World. 

terest in a part of the race, they are sure sooner 
or later to lose interest in their next-door neigh¬ 
bors. 

I meet with some who say they are opposed 
to foreign missions; hut I have concluded that 
the brethren are mistaken. It is not opposition 
to foreign missions, but a more serious trouble. 
Down in Florida the orange trees have what 
they call “foot rot.” It is a disease that at¬ 
tacks the roots of the trees. One of the signs is 
that the leaves begin to turn yellow. One not 
acquainted with the disease might think that by 
cutting off the sickly branch it would stop the 
trouble, but still the tree would continue to turn 
yellow and finally die. The disease is at the 
root, and, unless you can arrest it there, you 
might as well cut down the tree. Some congre¬ 
gations also have the “foot rot.” The trouble 
is not opposition to foreign missions, but lack 
of life. 

But let us proceed to a further consideration 
of the brighter side. The blessing comes back 
to us in other ways than those I have described. 
Not only does it stimulate activity in the church 
at home and make us do more right in our own 
town and neighborhood, not only does it re¬ 
plenish the church treasury, but there are other 


Christ the Light of the World. 223 

ways in which the blessing comes back. The 
truth is, God is watching every faithful effort, 
and has given us the promise that no acceptable 
service shall be lost. About twenty years ago 
there was a heathen boy walking the streets of 
Detroit. He came of a nation that believed in 
the worship of their ancestors. He was brought 
in touch with some Christian people in Detroit, 
who invited him to their meetings, got him in¬ 
terested, and finally led him into Christ. That 
converted heathen turned himself about and at 
once began to work for the conversion of the 
American “heathen.” When I was in Detroit 
the latter part of last year, a brother said to 
me: “Do you know Fujimori? He baptized my 
son.” Those brethren, when they converted 
Fujimori, probably did not have the least idea 
that they were converting a man who would in 
turn convert their own children, but this is the 
way it turned out. Fujimori has not only come 
to be a great blessing to his own people, but a 
blessing to us as well. 

Twelve or thirteen years ago I was teaching 
an English class, and in that class was a police¬ 
man. I got acquainted with him, invited him 
to our meetings, and later on had the pleasure 
of baptizing him. So far as I can remember, 


224 Christ the Light of the World. 

my only thought was that I desired to convert 
a boy who had been taught to bow down to the 
image of Buddha. But God, it seems, was 
watching that young man for a special purpose. 
Perhaps he said: “I will make an example of 
this young man, and will rebuke those people 
in America who often would discourage my 
servants by saying, ‘ You can do more good here 
than there. ’ ’ ’ At any rate, the young man found 
his way to the shores of the United States. 
Fortunately, unlike many of our own country¬ 
men, he did not leave his new religion behind 
him. He brought it with him, and for six years 
he labored, doing Christian work in California 
among his own people—people I could not have 
reached directly by my own labors. Thus, by 
converting one heathen in Japan, I was enabled 
through him to do six years’ mission work at 
home. I refer to Brother Hiratsuka, Brother 
Bishop’s colaborer, and to-day one of the most 
faithful men we have in Japan. 

Brother Fujimori and F. A. Wagner went, 
back to Japan about fourteen years ago, and 
have done a great work there since. They 
established work in the province of Shimosa, 
and there, among others, came in touch with a 
certain farmer. They became intimate friends, 


Christ the Light of the World. 225 

and Wagner led him from idols to Christ. In 
doing this, Wagner did not know he was doing 
anything for America. But when I left Japan, 
that very farmer came to my home and brought 
the address of his brother in America, and said: 
“I want yon to go and see my brother and talk 
to him about becoming a Christian. ’ ’ All these 
years he has been corresponding with his 
brother and sending him Christian literature. 
I sought him out on my arrival in San Fran¬ 
cisco. He is a laundryman, and has forty other 
Japanese working under him. By mutual ar¬ 
rangement I went hack next morning, which 
was Sunday, in company with a young brother 
of that city. We met at nine o’clock. There 
were about thirty-five of the forty present. I 
took my Japanese song hook, sung two or three 
songs, opened my Japanese Testament and read 
to them that beautiful figure that Jesus used of 
the vine and the branches, and made comments. 
When the meeting was over, the man stood up 
and spoke in substance as follows: 1 ‘ This friend 
that has come from our own country is a friend 
of our people. He knows my brother and fam¬ 
ily in Japan. He is over there teaching our 
people about this religion, and we are very glad 
he is with us to-day; and we ought to show our 
16 


226 Christ the Light of the World. 

appreciation of his being with ns.’’ Suiting the 
action to the word, he picked up a hat and 
passed it around. When he came back, he took 
out thirteen dollars and five cents and handed 
it to me—a gift from the “heathen” of Japan 
for the furtherance of the gospel in America! 
He added: “I am not a Christian, hut it is not 
because I believe in Buddha, Yet I am here, 
you see, in America, and do not know the lan¬ 
guage; the American people do not know Jap¬ 
anese; so there is a sort of separation between 
us, so that no one takes special interest in me.” 
The seed has been sown; we wait for the ripen¬ 
ing grain. In converting Tsukamoto in Japan, 
Wagner was preparing the way for this meet¬ 
ing in the laundry of his brother in America—a 
meeting with a class of people that the people 
here probably never would reach if their atten¬ 
tion were not called to them by the converted 
heathen in Japan. 

Another instance: In 1908, you know, the 
great American battleship fleet went around the 
world. They came to Japan and were enter¬ 
tained there five days, October 20-25. Japan 
endeavored to give them a royal reception. Ev¬ 
erything was done that was necessary to make 
that great fleet have a pleasant time, In addi- 


Christ the Light of the World. 227 


tion to other things, the authorities thought of 
putting the “geisha ’’ girls on the programme 
to entertain the American officers. These little 
Eastern butterflies have winsome ways and sing 
sweetly; and if that were all, it would not be so 
bad. But the “geisha’’ girls are not such girls 
as adorn pure society. There rose up as one 
man a great company, both Japanese and for¬ 
eign, and offered their written petition against 
it. As a result, it was struck off from the pro¬ 
gramme. Fifty years’ mission work in Japan 
had established such a moral sentiment that it 
threw around our people as guests in a foreign 
land this protection against sexual vice, a thing 
which would have been impossible had we not 
been unselfish enough during these years to give 
both men and means for the uplift of others. 

The missionaries and the native believers had 
combined to have everything ready. They had 
their places of amusement and soft drinks in¬ 
stead of intoxicants. They had companies of 
young men who would take these “blue jack¬ 
ets” about over the city. You would see this 
army of young men going down and meeting the 
trains as the “blue jackets” came in, to offer 
their services as guides to places of importance 
—such as the parks, temples, and other places 


228 Christ the Light of the World. 


of interest. In that company were five or six 
boys of our dormitory who went down to the 
station each day for five days. You know, 
sailor boys are not always as exemplary as they 
should be. Now and then you will find one that 
is, hut not as a rule. When they are turned 
loose on shore, they are inclined to run wild 
and go to pieces for a few days. There was an 
effort made in Japan to prevent this. I was 
much interested in the stories the boys would 
tell when they came back at night. Sometimes 
they would have pleasant stories to relate, over 
which they would laugh. I remember once, 
however, that Nomura said he had gotten hold 
of a “bad boy.” He did not say a “tough 
case,” for he did not know idiomatic English 
well enough for that. He said: “I got a had 
boy. Before we went far, that young man said: 
‘ Let us go in here.’ I said: ‘ No, I am a student; 
I don’t go to places like that.’ We hadn’t gone 
much farther when he took hold of my arm, and 
said: ‘Let us go in.’ I said: ‘No, I am a Chris¬ 
tian, and do not go to places like that. ’ ‘ What! 

You a Christian ? ’ he said, ridiculing me. ’ ’ But 
Nomura kept his ground, and also kept that 
young man out of those dens of iniquity as long 
as he stayed with him. 


Christ the Light of the World. 229 

I do not know whether the young man came 
from a Christian family back here in America, 
but it is not at all impossible that he did. It 
may be that the father of this young man who 
wanted to dive into those dens of vice was a 
deacon in the church, accustomed to sitting up 
in the “amen corner;” and it may he possible 
that a missionary went around to that very 
church and made a speech on missions, and it 
is quite possible that the old brother shook his 
head, and said: “Not for me; no fure’n missions 
for me. I believe in working on the heathen at 
home. When we get ’em all converted here, 
it will he time enough to begin on the Japs.” 
And yet here was a “heathen Jap” in a distant 
land arming his “Christian” son around and 
keeping him out of the dens of vice. A hoy 
from “Christian” America saved from iniquity 
by a “ heathen 9 9 Japanese! Who knows but the 
influence exercised over that sailor boy that day 
may be the seed that is yet germinating in his 
heart and which may ultimately bring forth 
fruit unto a model Christian life? What was 
true of Nomura and his charge was true of many 
other similar cases. At the landing in Yoko¬ 
hama there were held services on shore while 
the sailors were waiting for their launches to 


230 Christ the Light of the World. 

return to their ships, and, remarkable enough, 
two Japanese Christians who were up in Eng¬ 
lish engaged in the public speaking along with 
the missionaries. 

Then, again, there are other ways in which 
the blessing comes back to you and me. For in¬ 
stance, all congregations have some differences 
among the members. There is not a church in 
all this land of ours that does not have its 
“ups” and “downs,” especially its “downs.” 
These little questions bring disunion. One of 
the ways to settle such questions is to get away 
from them, dismiss them, and forget them. It 
is said that at one time when this country was 
in an upstir over some political question, some 
one asked General Grant what he thought 
should be done to restore harmony, and Grant 
replied that the best thing to do would be for 
the United States to open war on Mexico. The 
idea was that if they could get the country in¬ 
terested in some common cause, trifles at home 
would disappear. A great many of the ques¬ 
tions that spring up in congregations would dis¬ 
appear if they would become interested in some 
important work outside themselves—if they 
would open war on Mexico. If they would only 
open war on the great heathen world, they 


Christ the Light of the World. 231 

would then stand shoulder to shoulder doing 
God ’s service. 

I met a peculiar case that illustrates this point 
down in Georgia,. I went to a certain congre¬ 
gation that seemed to me to have more native 
ability than I had met in a long time. They 
were not doing much, however. In that con¬ 
gregation there was an aged brother—a man 
of whom everybody spoke well—who had but 
one blemish on his Christian character: he had 
gotten it into his mind that in passing around 
the bread a plate should not be used. A preach¬ 
ing brother said that he was too sensible to hold 
such a belief, and he went and talked to the 
brother; but the more they talked, the worse 
matters became, and he still held on to his opin¬ 
ion. He grew more and more disagreeable, 
and contended that it was not the Lord’s table 
when the bread was passed around on a plate. 
He stopped eating with the brethren. In think¬ 
ing over the matter, I tried to figure out how 
a good man could get into such a condition of 
mind. That congregation meets on the first 
day of the week, breaks bread, and goes back 
home. The next Sunday they meet, break 
bread, and go home. This seems to satisfy 
their consciences as being the sum total of 


232 Christ the Light of the World. 


Christian duty. They have become self-cen¬ 
tered, to the neglect of their fellow-men; and so 
this brother, not being occupied with aggressive 
work, got it into his mind that the loaf should 
not be carried around on a plate. With noth¬ 
ing else to elicit his energies, he kept holding 
that little microscopic item up to his eye until 
he could see nothing else. If that congregation 
had been waging war on the unconverted por¬ 
tion of the world and had been stirred over the 
lost condition of mankind, I do not believe such 
trouble would ever have arisen. 

The blessing comes back to us still in another 
way. It consecrates our hearts. Nearly a hun¬ 
dred years ago there went out from this country 
a missionary to India by the name of “Adoni- 
ram Judson.” He was sent by the Congrega- 
tionalist Board. He was led, by the thought 
that he was called and sent to preach to heathen 
people, to consider whether he himself had ever 
been baptized. “During the voyage Mr. Jud- 
son was led to reconsider his views upon bap¬ 
tism, wishing to defend them before the Baptists 
he expected to meet, and also to be ‘fully per¬ 
suaded in his own mind’ concerning his course 
with the heathen converts.” (“Life of Adoni- 
ram Judson,” by Julia H. Johnston.) When 


Cheist the Light of the Wobld. 233 

lie reached Calcutta, he and his wife were bap¬ 
tized. It is probable that if he had never gone 
as a missionary to India, he would never have 
considered that question for himself. It is a 
very serious matter that bears in upon the 
minds of men and women who go as mission¬ 
aries. Here at home we are accustomed to reli¬ 
gious differences and are satisfied with our reli¬ 
gious beliefs; but when a man goes as a mis¬ 
sionary to a heathen country, he wants to ex¬ 
amine himself to see if he is in the faith, so that 
he may not go and simply substitute one error 
for another. As a result of such self-examina¬ 
tion, Adoniram Judson was led to see the truth 
in a clearer light. 

It deepens and broadens our love. Up in Ken¬ 
tucky I heard a story that illustrates this. A 
brother decided that he would build a meeting¬ 
house close to where he lived. He said that he 
put up the house in order that his family might 
have an opportunity to hear the truth. Now, 
that was a noble act, but it is not the noblest 
and highest thing a man can do. There is dan¬ 
ger, if we confine our efforts to our own partic¬ 
ular kith and kin, of our becoming narrow and 
self-centered, interested in a select few, some¬ 
what like the man who is said to have prayed 


234 Christ the Light of the World. 

to the Lord to bless “me and my wife, my son 
John and his wife, ns four and no more.” It 
is a very dangerous thing for a man to limit or 
confine his efforts to such a narrow scope of ac¬ 
tivity. You want to have preaching done in a 
certain neighborhood because you have an uncle 
there who has not heard the truth. That is 
good, but there is something better. When a 
man views the great world and sees various na¬ 
tionalities—looks into Africa and sees the black 
men, or into Asia and sees the brown men—and 
then plants himself in the midst of a foreign 
people with nothing in common with himself, 
speaking a different language and having cus¬ 
toms many of which are disagreeable to him 
and are often shocking to his sense of propriety, 
and looks upon these people with compassion, 
and goes to them with no other inducement 
than the love of Christ, such a man has taken 
a great step in advance. He stands on higher 
ground than when he tried to convert his uncle. 
He begins to get a clearer view of what it meant 
to Christ for him to come into this world and 
die for mankind. He gets a taste of what it 
meant for Jesus to come into the world and die 
the ignominious death of the cross that we 
might live. It is only when we get on a higher 


Christ the Light of the World. 235 


plane and view this work as Christ looked at 
it that we feel truly grateful to him for what 
he has done for us, and we thank him for our 
having a part in the great work of redeeming 
men from sin and destruction. 

Indifference to world-wide missions may come 
from lack of information. There are many 
good people throughout our land who are not 
interested in these questions because they have 
not given them much attention. But I am 
afraid a great many are not interested in carry¬ 
ing this message to those who have it not, be¬ 
cause the grade of religion they have is not 
such as to lead them to place a very high esti¬ 
mate upon it. Down in their hearts they feel 
that the religion they have is not worth while; 
they are not sure it would benefit the heathen. 
We do not want that kind of religion in a 
heathen land. A religion that stains itself up 
with a quid of tobacco; that goes out from be¬ 
hind screened doors wiping its mouth and look¬ 
ing this way and that; that idles away its time 
on street corners or in front of a store whittling 
on a goods box while engaged in secondhand 
swearing by relating the curse words of others; 
that takes more interest in a fair than in the 
fellowship of the saints; that rushes into the 


236 Christ the Light of the World. 

muddy pool of politics, to the neglect of pure 
religion and undefiled; that turns a deaf ear to 
the cries of the poor—such a religion would not 
be likely to help the heathen if they had it. But 
“pure religion and undefiled before our God 
and Father,” that fills the hearts and souls of 
men, and makes them feel, as Paul felt, “Woe 
is unto me, if I preach not the gospel”—that 
is the religion that will help those in darkness. 
This is the kind we should first have ourselves; 
this is the religion that will prove itself worth 
while to be imparted to the heathen abroad. 
Let us then consider the whole question anew; 
first get ourselves right with God; then start 
out and never be contented till we have carried 
this message to the uttermost parts of the earth, 
with the blessed assurance that in so doing all 
the more stars will be set in our crown; for 
“they that are wise shall shine as the bright¬ 
ness of the firmament; and they that turn many 
to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.” 


Christ the Light of the World. 237 


THE CHURCH AND THE MISSIONARY 
PROBLEM. 


The greatest institution in the world is the 
church, and the greatest problem in the world 
is the missionary problem. This, the greatest 
of all problems, is to be solved by the church, 
the greatest of all institutions. 

The Problem. 

The population of the various mission fields 
is distributed as follows: Latin America (in¬ 
cluding Mexico, Central and South America), 
47,500,000; Africa, 175,000,000; Turkey, 35,000,- 
000; Russia, 150,000,000; India, 300,000,000; 
China, 400,000,000; Japan, 50,000,000; Korea, 
12,000,000; Philippines, 8,000,000; East Indies, 
40,000,000—a total of 1,217,500,000. This does 
not include the semi-Christianized nations of 
Europe. It is estimated that a missionary and 
his wife, with what native help they may be 
able to raise, can reach 50,000 people in a gen¬ 
eration. On this basis the various denomina- 



238 Christ the Light of the World. 


tions are endeavoring to undertake the complete 
evangelization of all the heathen world. I read 
the following from “The Uprising of Men for 
World Conquest/’ by Samuel B. Capen: “It 
is a matter of profound gratitude that so many 
of the denominations have already taken offi¬ 
cial action in this matter and declare themselves 
responsible for the evangelization of the follow¬ 
ing numbers in non-Christian countries: United 
Presbyterians, 15,000,000; Southern Presbyte¬ 
rians, 25,000,000; Northern Presbyterians, 100,- 
000,000; Northern Baptists, 61,000,000; South¬ 
ern Methodists, 40,000,000; Northern Metho¬ 
dists, 150,000,000; Congregationalists, 75,000,- 
000; Dutch Reformed, 13,000,000; Reformed 
Church in United States, 10,000,000; Canadian 
Societies, 40,000,000; United Brethren, 5,000,- 
000; Foreign Christian Missionary Society, 15,- 
000 , 000 .” 

This makes a total of 549,000,000, or about 
one-half of the entire heathen world. Great 
Britain has nearly as many missionaries in for¬ 
eign fields as all the United States and Canada 
combined. Germany, Norway, Sweden, Den¬ 
mark, and Australia—all Protestant countries— 
can also he counted on to do something. If 
these countries increase their efforts in propor- 


Christ the Light of the World. 239 

tion to those being made on this side of the wa¬ 
ters, all pagan lands will soon be supplied with 
enough workers to bring the gospel in reach of 
every man and woman in the wide world. 

In order to supply the pagan world with a 
male missionary to every 50,000 people, it will 
require 24,350 workers. At present there are 
about 22,000 missionaries already in heathen 
lands. About 9,000 of these are women. To 
bring the number up to 24,350 male missiona¬ 
ries will require a doubling of the present 
forces. 

This will require a similar increase in the 
missionary offerings. The Southern Presbyte¬ 
rians have increased their gifts to missions in 
four years from $223,000 to $412,000. The 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has set as 
its “financial goal the increase of their mission¬ 
ary offerings from $750,000 to $3,000,000 an¬ 
nually. ’ 9 The Methodist Episcopal Church has 
decided “to increase their scale of giving to for¬ 
eign missions from $2,000,000 in 1908 to $6,- 
000,000 by 1912.” The Northern Presbyterians 
have passed recommendations to raise the for¬ 
eign missionary offering to $5 per church mem¬ 
ber. Other denominations are acting in like 
manner. 


240 Christ the Light of the World. 


These facts give us some conception of how 
Protestant Christianity is grappling with the 
greatest problem of this age—the evangeliza¬ 
tion of the world—and that, too, in this genera¬ 
tion. Let us all rejoice at it, for it is not only 
doing much for the enlightenment and uplift of 
the nations in giving them a knowledge of God 
and of the world’s Redeemer, but it is paving 
the way for the work that God expects us to do. 
If he has in his providence blessed us in giving 
us more light than others, he requires us to be 
all the more zealous in imparting it to the be¬ 
nighted. Let us also rejoice that God has led 
us to see that the only acceptable and successful 
way of doing this work is through his own in¬ 
stitution—the greatest in the world. 

The Church. 

The church in itself is God’s missionary so¬ 
ciety, and every member of it is a missionary. 
The church of God may be fitly compared to an 
army. This implies organization, consecration, 
and individual effort. An army without organ¬ 
ization would be useless, and not a soldier on 
the roll is exempt from service; while every one 
must be subject to orders, having no will of his 
own. This is consecration. And one of the 


Christ the Light of the World. 241 

chief needs of the church to-day is organization, 
personal enlistment, and individual consecra¬ 
tion. Orderly arrangement of all parts of the 
body is a necessity. This must be done in order 
that all the members may operate and cooper¬ 
ate. It behooves every church to come together 
and get itself properly adjusted, so that all the 
parts may be in place and fill the place they 
are in; for not only must the church act as a 
whole, but it must act individually. “For we 
are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus 
for good works, which God afore prepared that 
we should walk in them.” (Eph. 2: 10.) Now, 
the idea that a Christian is to come into the 
church and sit down just to he fed like a young 
bird is foreign to the Scriptures. To “keep 
house for the Lord” seems to be about the only 
idea many have as to what the Christian’s duty 
is; but we were created in Christ Jesus, not to 
“keep house for the Lord,” hut “for good 
works, which God afore prepared that we should 
walk in them.” What is generally meant by 
“keeping house for the Lord” is to meet to¬ 
gether on the first day of the week to break 
bread. I am not criticising this part of the 
Christian’s service, only I would admonish 
against settling down to this as the center and 
17 


242 Chkist the Light of the World. 

circumference of tlie whole round of Christian 
duty. When Jesus said ‘ 1 Go, ’ ’ he did not mean 
simply to go to meeting on Sunday morning, but 
‘ 4 into all the world”—not for one’s own benefit, 
but for the good of others. 

We need to get all the church together for the 
purpose of getting every member of the church 
enlisted in some kind of service, and this is the 
secret of getting the members to attend. Now, 
for instance, if that young brother sitting back 
there is not given something to do, he sits there 
and sings or does not sing, as the spirit moves 
him, or does not, then he gets up when the meet¬ 
ing is over and goes out, while no one, perhaps, 
even so much as speaks to him. He goes back 
home and says: “I didn’t get much out of that 
meeting.” He comes possibly the next Lord’s 
day, but he is back nearer the door than he was 
before; he observes what goes on, partakes of 
the Lord’s Supper when it is passed to him, and 
goes home again. The next Sunday he is ab¬ 
sent, for he says: “I do not do anything when 
I go to the meeting. I have nothing to do. 
Things would go just as well if I were not 
there. ’ ’ And as a result he drops out and drops 
back into the world. The secret of keeping 
people in the church is to keep them busy in the 


Christ the Light of the World. 243 

church. This, to my mind, is one of the great¬ 
est needs at the present time. In order to keep 
them busy we must lay out work for them to do. 
Now, for example, away over in that little pen¬ 
insular country of Korea this year they are en¬ 
deavoring to reach a million people with the 
gospel. The missionaries and the native be¬ 
lievers get together at stated times to consider 
this matter as to how they may do it. But the 
Korean people, like the people in the East gen¬ 
erally, are poor. They are unable to give a 
great deal of money, but they get together in 
these meetings for the consideration of work, 
and, if possible, to bring in a million people dur¬ 
ing this year. One of the members of these as¬ 
semblies will stand up and say, for instance: “I 
will give exclusively to evangelistic work three 
weeks.’’ He may be a merchant. Another 
man will say: “I will devote a whole month to 
evangelistic work.” He is not a preacher; he 
is a common man in some business; but what he 
means is that he will supply himself with Chris¬ 
tian literature, tracts and Bibles or Testaments, 
and will go from village to village, and will, 
just in a quiet way, talk to the people and dis¬ 
tribute these, and will give his whole time dur¬ 
ing that period strictly to evangelistic work. 


244 Christ the Light of the World. 


Now, something like that would be good for 
the churches in our own land. It would be a 
little bit new, I admit. I do not know of any 
church that has ever done it, but it seems to me 
it would be a very delightful and profitable 
thing for the church to do. For instance, Fos¬ 
ter Street comes together on Wednesday night. 
It is prayer-meeting night. It is not just sim¬ 
ply to have the prayer meeting, though, for its 
own sake, dry and uninteresting, with no one 
particularly prepared for it; but you come to¬ 
gether and say: “We must do something. Here 
is our State largely unconverted, and the great 
wide world beyond is almost totally without the 
gospel, and God expects us to do something- 
worthy of the name that we wear.” Every 
member of the church, young and old, male and 
female, is expected to enlist. Their names are 
all taken down, the elder prays, and those ap¬ 
pointed go round to every one to see what they 
can do. “ Well, ’ ’ says one, ‘ 1 1 will give a whole 
day next week to Christian work right here in 
Nashville. ” Or it may be that the whole church 
will be induced to take concert of action, and 
every one will be persuaded to give a day out 
of a month to evangelistic work, and on that 
stated day you come together again—say, at six 


Christ the Light of the World. 245 


o’clock in the morning—and spend an hour in 
prayer and meditation before you start out on 
that campaign; then you go out in every direc¬ 
tion round about here in the city of Nashville 
looking up those that are neglected and those 
you have never seen before, with literature in 
your hands and the Word in your mouth and 
the Bible under your arm, doing something for 
those you have never spoken to before about 
Christ. Something of that kind, though it 
would be new, would soon so fill you with en¬ 
thusiasm that you would not be content with 
confining your labors to the city of Nashville, 
nor even to the State of Tennessee, nor yet to 
the United States, but you would take in the full 
scope of the Master’s language about the field, 
which is the world; and then, when you had your 
prayer meetings, there would be something to 
pray for. 

Two Classes of Church Workers. 

In God’s sight, I suppose, there is no such 
thing as home missions and foreign missions. 
Distance counts nothing with him, and all na¬ 
tions are equally precious in his sight. Hu¬ 
manly speaking, however—and the Bible speaks 
in a very human style—it is quite proper and 


246 Christ the Light of the World. 


altogether right to distinguish between the 
home field and the foreign field; and, also, there 
is propriety in dividing the workers into two 
classes, the home missionary and the foreign 
missionary. When Jesus had cured the demo¬ 
niac, the poor fellow was so drawn to his Bene¬ 
factor that he wanted to get into the boat and 
go with him and be with him; but Jesus said 
to him: “Go to thy house unto thy friends, and 
tell them how great things the Lord hath done 
for thee, and how he had mercy on thee. And 
he went his way, and began to publish in De- 
capolis how great things Jesus had done for 
him: and all men marveled.” (Mark 5: 19, 20.) 

Here is a man sent out preaching immediately 
after he had learned of Christ. No further 
preparation was necessary than that he had sim¬ 
ply become a disciple. Most likely he was un¬ 
educated and altogether unskilled in public 
speaking. Neither was he of good report as to 
his past record, nor had he built up any charac¬ 
ter back of the message he was to bear. He 
was not required to make orderly speeches on 
any of the deep and difficult doctrines of reli¬ 
gion—such as the nature of the Godhead, the 
atonement, the resurrection, the new birth, the 
two covenants, and subjects of that nature; but 



Christ the Light of the World. 247 

the story he was to tell to his home people was 
a story of experience—what the Lord had done 
for him. This kind of preaching is such as ev¬ 
ery Christian should engage in, regardless of 
health, age, natural ability, or education. Ev¬ 
ery one can tell about what God has done for 
him. Christians will not only be glad to do this, 
but they will be impelled to do it. I once met 
a man returning from Hot Springs, Ark. He 
had gone there an invalid, all crippled up with 
rheumatism. He was coming away a well man. 
I met him in a railroad station as a perfect 
stranger. But he was soon in an enthusiastic 
conversation with me, telling me what Hot 
Springs had done for him. It was no task for 
him to do this, but he delighted in it. Neither 
did he have to think out how he would say it, 
for his heart was so full of his subject that the 
particular method of telling it did not trouble 
him. Every Christian man and woman must he 
like this man cured of rheumatism—their hearts 
must be overflowing with the feeling: 

“ I love to tell the story, 

It did so much for me; 

And that is just the reason 
I tell it now to thee.” 


248 Christ the Light of the World. 

The commission given to this new disciple be¬ 
gins also with the word “go,” and may prop¬ 
erly be called the “home commission,” while 
the one given to the twelve later on might be 
designated the ‘ 4 foreign commission.’ ’ The one 
extends to the whole world, while the other is 
primarily to one’s own community. “ Go to thy 
house unto thy friends, and tell them how great 
things the Lord hath done for thee.” Sup¬ 
pose that request were made of you here to¬ 
night, what could you say? Let us imagine 
some Christians telling what the Lord has done 
for them. What sort of a story would it all 
make? Brother Wayside, for instance, meets 
Neighbor Unbeliever and begins to tell him his 
Christian experience: 

“I hope I am a Christian, Neighbor Unbe¬ 
liever, hut really I don’t know whether I am or 
not. I often think of that old song we used to 
hear sung when I was a boy: 

“ ‘ Tis a point I long to know, 

Oft it causes anxious thought: 

Do I love the Lord or no? 

Am I his, or am I not? ’ ” 


“Then you don’t seem to know whether you 
are a sheep or a goat?” 


Christ the Light of the World. 249 

“No, I really don’t, Neighbor Unbeliever. 
We bad a mighty good meeting though, when 
I was brought in. Brother Skinner was the 
preacher, and he preached some as fine sermons 
as I ever hyeard. He certainly preached the 
doctrine straight and hewed to the line. It 
wuzn’t long, though, after the meetin’ wuz over, 
till I got mad at the mules and cussed ’em out. 
I drink sometimes, but I hardly ever git past 
goin ’. I chew and smoke just like I did before 
I was baptized. I go to meetin’ in fine weather, 
but never pray either in church or at home. I 
can’t read in public if it’s in the church. When 
the preacher comes, if I like his preachin’, I 
throw in a nickel. I don’t have time to visit 
my neighbors, and I am ashamed to talk on re¬ 
ligion when I do go, but I can put it in on poli¬ 
tics about right, though; I do love to talk on 
politics. ’ ’ 

What do you think of a Christian experience 
like this, brethren? Think you such a story 
would win others to Christ? Every Christian 
should so live that the relation of his own expe¬ 
riences would be a sermon. You hear people 
talking about a “drawing card.” The true 
Christian is always a drawing card. This is the 
kind of preaching every one must engage in. 


250 Christ the Light of the World. 

It requires no special qualifications other than 
a consecrated life. 

0, my dear friends, we see that in order to 
tell this story it requires a worthy life on the 
part of the person that tells it; and do you not 
know that whenever you begin to talk about 
your religion to other people and endeavor to in¬ 
duce them to accept it, it stimulates you, and 
you are encouraged to endeavor more earnestly 
to live up to the life that you profess than you 
would be if you went about through the world 
with your mouth shut ? The home missionaries! 
0, we need them! We have a great many peo¬ 
ple professing to be Christians, but we have too 
few home missionaries. The great rank and 
file of the church should be just like a working 
beehive, telling the simple story and living it 
so that they could tell it in a way that would 
call people to Christ—not in any set form, but 
just telling along in a simple way what God has 
done and what he will do, presenting the way of 
truth by word of mouth, backed by a holy life. 
Now that is a home missionary, and this em¬ 
braces the whole church. For example, any 
man, however feeble in body, may be a home 
missionary. Why, he may hobble around the 
streets on his crutches; he may be a hunchback, 


Christ the Light of the World. 251 

as such a brother I have in mind now, and sell 
peanuts on the corner of the street, and yet be a 
home missionary. But a man like that would 
not do for these foreign fields. That is a differ¬ 
ent matter. We do not want to send invalids 
to foreign lands, but able-bodied men and 
women. 

Like the elder, who must have all the quali¬ 
fications of the common Christian and also some 
others in addition, in like manner must the for¬ 
eign missionary have certain parts as necessary 
qualifications which the ordinary Christian 
could get on without. I consider this matter 
of such primary importance that I pause here to 
give special emphasis to it. The foreign mis¬ 
sionary is a picked man sent forth by the church 
in an orderly manner. (Acts 13: 1-3.) His 
success depends on a number of things. First, a 
very important qualification is health. One may 
be a devout Christian under very serious bodily 
afflictions; but as a missionary this would stand 
very seriously in his way, and would make it 
very unadvisable to encourage his going to a 
foreign field. Second, temperament should also 
be considered. One given to moods may get 
on fairly well in the midst of friends to help 
him up out of the dumps when he is down; but 


252 Christ the Light of the World. 


such a person in a foreign land, who must often 
be alone with God without the uplift that comes 
from associates, will always be handicapped. 
Third, one who is accustomed to lean on others, 
who distrusts his own judgment, and who finds 
it difficult to take the initiative and do things 
on his own responsibility, is not a proper person 
for a foreign missionary. Fourth, fickleness of 
character might be bearable in an ordinary 
Christian; but in a missionary it would be a 
very serious, and possibly a fatal, defect. A 
fixed purpose and untiring perseverance are 
sterling qualities essential to success in a for¬ 
eign land. One must go in to win or die, let 
come what may. Fifth, education is another 
necessary qualification of a foreign missionary. 
The reasons for this are so apparent that it is 
hardly worth while to go into details here. On 
the mission field where one goes as a teacher, 
one is expected to know everything; and while 
this is not possible, yet a well-rounded educa¬ 
tion comes in as a part of one’s missionary 
equipment. One very essential part of the mis¬ 
sionary’s training is to learn where and when 
to spend a dollar. Missionaries, like preachers, 
generally are poor managers of finances. They 
are poor at keeping accounts and unsystematic 


Christ the Light of the World. 253 


in the management of their affairs. Often they 
subject themselves to financial straits by show¬ 
ing poor judgment as to when they should 
spend and what they should spend for. A man 
who is poor in the management of his finances 
will always he hampered and crippled in his in¬ 
fluence. Another item in a missionary’s educa¬ 
tion is to know human nature. He may read 
hooks well enough; but if he cannot read men, 
his efforts will he seriously crippled. Sixth, 
the missionary must also be a man of faith. 
Though he must work as though God would not 
do anything, he must trust as though man could 
not. This is necessary for every Christian, hut 
doubly so for the missionary. He must have 
faith in God as the ever-present help in the try¬ 
ing hour of need, as a Friend among strangers, 
a Sympathizer under criticism, and One who 
never forsakes in time of adversity. Though 
one’s faith he weak, if he he at home surrounded 
by friends to encourage and strengthen him, he 
may he able to overcome; hut placed in a dis¬ 
tant land amid strange surroundings and a 
strange, unsympathetic people, with home and 
home influences having receded at a great dis¬ 
tance from him (so great that even their exist¬ 
ence scarcely seems real), one must be conscious 


254 Christ the Light of the World. 


of an ever-present God who in all places is the 
same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 

I have spoken of the qualifications of the mis¬ 
sionary and the duty of the church. There is 
a joint obligation. The church has its part of 
the work to do, and so does the missionary. 
The laborer who goes forth from the bosom of 
the church is worthy of his hire. I mean, if he 
is worthy as a laborer, he is worthy of his hire. 
If he is not worthy, he should be kindly and 
plainly told as much and dismissed from the 
service. Let such a one then seek a place where 
he can be useful, so that the word of God he 
not hindered. The missionary is not to be tol¬ 
erated, but indorsed. 

On one occasion I commended one of the 
churches for sending regularly to a certain 
brother laboring in a destitute field. Later one 
of the brethren said to me privately that they 
were not sending regularly to the brother, hut 
that they watched the papers, and when they 
saw he was in distress they sent him something. 
Now, I say frankly that this is a shame. If a 
brother is worthy of fellowship at all, he is 
worthy of it as a ‘ ‘ double honor, ’ ’ and not as a 
humiliation. If anything is due him at all, it 
is due without his having to get down on his 


Christ the Light of the World. 255 


knees before the brethren and plead with them 
for it. Dire distress is not the only thing that 
should prompt people to act. A missionary’s 
needs recur as often as those of other people. 
If he needs food, shelter, and clothes one month, 
he is likely to need the same the next; and there 
is not a passage in all the Scriptures that pre¬ 
cludes the act of regular, orderly giving to those 
who have gone forth to reap for God. The com¬ 
mand to take regular weekly collections implies 
the principle of regular, orderly distribution. 
Instead of a monthly gift, it would be still more 
scriptural to send the missionary a weekly one. 
Let the churches take up mission work in the 
support of those that are worthy and commu¬ 
nicate with them on the principle that they are 
really men and women worthy of double honor, 
both for their work’s sake and the hardships 
they bear. If it should so transpire that one 
cannot be regarded thus, let him not be fellow- 
shipped at all as a missionary, but let him retire 
to private life and there find his place of useful¬ 
ness. The churches have been too neglectful in 
regard to this matter. Every church should 
feel, even down to every member in it, that the 
church is just as deeply involved in this matter 
as the missionary himself. It is not that mis- 


256 Christ the Light of the World. 


sionary, but our missionary. It is not that 
work in Japan, Africa, or India, but our work 
in these heathen lands. The man who goes 
forth to the regions beyond needs not only finan¬ 
cial support, but the moral support of those who 
remain behind. They should take him to their 
hearts and be his bulwark of strength. None 
but those who have been out on the lonely and 
trying frontier can fully appreciate what it 
means to have the warm heart throb of those 
back behind who are in sympathetic accord with 
him. 

There is a tendency on the part of some of 
the churches to be miscellaneous in their efforts, 
giving here and there, first to this person and 
then to the other. Every church should map 
out its work and then persistently push that 
work to completion, or at least keep it up till 
circumstances make a change inevitable. If a 
certain missionary is worthy and a particular 
church decides to send to him regularly for a 
year, all things else being equal, the same rea¬ 
sons exist for keeping up the fellowship during 
the succeeding years that existed at the first. 
But if a church sends to Brother A this year, 
then for no particular reason drops him the next 
and sends to Brother B, it throws the work into 


Christ the Light of the World. 257 

confusion. Each should stick to his bush. For 
instance, a number of churches are now giving 
with comparative regularity to each of the mis¬ 
sionaries in Japan. This is as it should be, only 
it is not as complete as it should be. There 
should be a more general understanding on the 
part of the churches as to what the others are 
doing, so that there may not be neglect on the 
one hand nor overlapping on the other. Enough 
churches should be induced to give to one man 
till he is supported, and as long as he is worthy 
they should continue to cooperate with him. 
The missionary also should report to the 
churches at least once a month both the amount 
each gives and the total amount he has re¬ 
ceived. This should be read before the church. 
By such means every member in the church 
would know what the church has done, what 
each of the other churches in cooperation has 
done, and what all have done conjointly. It 
would then be an easy matter to decide whether 
the support was sufficient and whether the 
offerings ought to be increased or still other 
churches enlisted in his behalf. 

Some give for a little time, then stop. To 
prevent this, some one in the church (let it be 
either a man or a woman) should volunteer to 
18 


258 Christ the Light of the World. 


look after the missionary offering. If it is a 
brother doing it, he should publicly remind the 
church from time to time of the approaching 
day when the missionary offering will be taken; 
he should also he able to say something definite 
about the people and country where the mis¬ 
sionary is laboring, and give some detailed ac¬ 
count of his work as well. This will be ob¬ 
tained largely through the missionary’s monthly 
reports. If it is a sister doing it, she can work 
individually in a private way, and by stirring 
up the men to make public mention of the 
missionary offering. The missionary usually 
writes letters of acknowledgment to each 
church contributing to him, in which are items 
of interest concerning the work. These letters 
should be read to the church, with such com¬ 
ments as may be proper and helpful. This 
gives information, quickens interest, and keeps 
the church in close touch with the worker. 

A good way to get a church started in regu¬ 
lar giving to foreign missions is for some 
brother (or, if a sister, she can make her an¬ 
nouncement through the brethren) whose heart 
stirs him up to purpose in his heart that he will 
give on some Lord’s day in each month, say, 
one dollar. Then, a week or two beforehand, 


Christ the Light of the World. 259 

let him get up and announce that on the follow¬ 
ing Sunday he has decided to give something 
to foreign missions, and would like to have as 
many of the other members join him in it as 
will. Such a step, if properly taken, will soon 
enlist the whole church. 

Also, every missionary in the foreign field 
should have his counterpart in the home land— 
a congenial brother as a stand-by, who knows 
him, trusts him, and is especially interested in 
him, and who is acquainted with his work and 
with every church contributing to him. Such a 
brother can be of much comfort and assistance 
in many ways, and can often say things that 
need to he said which the missionary himself 
would not feel disposed to mention. 

And, further, every preacher should preach 
on missions several times during the year, and 
every one accustomed to writing should do the 
same. They should inform themselves and be 
able to speak with intelligence and to the point. 
A few vague statements to the effect that the gos¬ 
pel is intended for the whole world are worthless. 
Every preacher at home should know the name 
and location of every missionary in the foreign 
field. He should know of the multiplied mil¬ 
lions who are without teaching, and should urge 


260 Christ the Light of the World. 


more to go. This matter of going should be 
made more familiar to people. Mention it to 
the average Christian and he is a perfect 
stranger to it. Its very mention strikes some 
with a shock. This only shows how far we have 
drifted from the spirit of the gospel. We must 
not simply give assent to missions, but we must 
be personally committed to them. After one of 
my lectures a brother was heard to say: “It is 
all right to go, I suppose, but Fd rather some 
one else would do it.” Such a brother lacks 
conversion. Out in one of the Western States 
I overheard a brother talking to his neighbor 
over the telephone: “Are you coming out to the 
lecture to-night?” “What lecture?” “By 
that missionary from Japan.” It was not our 
missionary, but that missionary. He was com¬ 
pletely on the outside of this question. Oth¬ 
ers might feel the burden of it, but he was quite 
unconcerned. We must get on the inside of this 
matter and consider ourselves a part and par¬ 
cel of it. It is not the concern of the mission¬ 
ary in whom we may or may not be interested, 
but the concern of the whole church. The look¬ 
ing out from among themselves suitable ones to 
be sent forth to the foreign field should be as 
familiar to the churches of to-day as it was to 


Christ the Light of the World. 261 

the church at Antioch. When our sons, daugh¬ 
ters, relatives, or friends offer themselves to go, 
we sin when we discourage and oppose it. I 
have known fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, 
relatives, guardians, friends, and even whole 
churches, to rise up in the face of the first part 
of the commission when some one of their num¬ 
ber expressed a desire to go, endeavoring to do 
just what the Lord had enjoined—no more, no 
less. I have been spoken against, treated as 
an enemy, and even threatened with prosecu¬ 
tion by law, all because I encouraged people to 
go as missionaries—and this, too, by my breth¬ 
ren! If you are opposed to one’s going as a 
missionary for no other reason than that such a 
one is in some way especially related to you, 
then you are virtually opposed to missions, for 
how can you ask others to go when you decline 
to go yourself or allow those related to you to 
go 1 Every one who goes is the child or relative 
of somebody. The reason why the church to¬ 
day is not converting the world is because the 
church itself is not converted. We see posted 
up in the railroad stations and other conspicu¬ 
ous places, “Men wanted for the army,” and 
thousands of the youth of our land are leaving 
their homes and friends to offer their services. 
Though it may cause a few tears to be shed at 


262 Christ the Light of the World. 


parting, parents are willing to let their children 
go, to he gone for years, and most likely for life, 
if it be a worldly enterprise like this. A young 
man in Kentucky, engaged to be married, left 
his sweetheart and was gone to the Philippines 
nine years before she received him hack again. 
Soon after their marriage he hade his young 
wife good-by again for two more years’ service 
to the government in the Philippines. Why are 
we not willing to do as much for Christ? 

The doors of the world are now wide open, 
and every church, and every member of every 
church, should feel the obligation to enter these 
open doors and engage in the rescue of the mul¬ 
tiplied millions of those who have never heard 
the message of hope. 

The great Light that sprang up on the shores 
of ancient Galilee still shines, and the isles that 
waited for his glory now see it and are glad. 
Like the sun that encircles the earth, so the 
“Sun of righteousness” has in two thousand 
years made his circuit of Western Asia, Europe, 
and America; and now again he has touched 
Asia in her most eastern borders, lighting up 
hilltops and valleys as on his world-wide march 
he goes, till “the earth shall be filled with the 
knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the wa¬ 
ters cover the sea . 9 ’ 


INDEX. 


A. 

Abyssinia, 27. 

Adventists, Seventh-Day, 127. 

Africa, area; population; topography; climate, 26; men¬ 
tioned in the Bible; its great desert; home of Apollos 
and the Ethiopian, 27; religions of; the slave trade in, 
28; early missionary labors, 29; present results, 30-2. 

Alexandria, in Egypt, 27. 

Ame-No-Naka-Nushi-No O-Mikami, shrine of, 96-8. 

American fleet, in Japan, 226-30. 

Anamori, temple of, 95-6. 

Asakusa, temple of, 88-90. 

Ashikaga, first work in, 176-8. 

Atlanta, Ga., church in, 220-1. 

B. 

Baptists, American in India, 38-9; in Japan, 142. 

Bible, in Africa, 27; its power over superstition, 67; how it 
first entered Japan, 108; basis of morals, 112; influ¬ 
ence in Japan, 110-31; influence of on Japanese liter¬ 
ature, 122-4; copies of sold in Turkey, 33; copies of 
distributed among the heathen, 44. 

Bishop, William J., 163-6. 

Bokkara, 34. 

Boomerang, 11. 

Buddha, image of, 55. 

Buddhism, 49; number of adherents, 50; nature of, 50-3; 
mixed with Shintoism, 53; Shibusawa’s estimate of, 114; 
Prince Ito’s estimate of, 112; introduction into Japan, 
132; a student’s estimate of, 157. 



264 


Index. 


C. 

California, harvesting in, 17; a missionary church of, 215-17; 
work of a Japanese convert in, 223-4. 

Calvin, John, 7. 

Carey, William, 11; missionary to India, 12; opposition to, 
38. 

Children, education of in Japan, 134-6; mission schools for, 
140-5; number of in Sunday school and kindergarten, 
126; first work among at Zoshigaya, 153-6; should be 
taught to give, 196-7. 

China, population of; first missionary to, 40; results in, 41. 

Christ, churches of in America, 14, 15, 19; churches of in 
Japan, 163. 

Christianity, influence of in high places, 110. 

Christians, number of in Africa, 28; in Turkey, 33. 

Church, and the missionary problem, chapter on, 237-62; 
God’s missionary society, 240; need of organization, 
241-5; two classes of workers in, 245-54; should be 
more systematic in giving, 254-8. 

Churches of Christ, lack of zeal, 15, 17; mission work of, 
chapter on, 160-87; beginning of their work in Japan, 
161; total membership, 161; names of the workers, 163; 
number of churches established, 163; summary of 
work, 164-6; property of in Japan, 165; are God’s mis¬ 
sionary societies, 240. 

Commission, the great, in the light of history, chapter on, 
1-19; not impossible to obey it, 99, 100; binding now, 
182-3, 185-6. 

Confucius, moral teachings of, 116, 137. 

Congregationalists, 12, 39, 232. 

Converts, number of in South America, 25; in Mexico, 26; 
in Africa, 30; in India, 40; in China, 41; in Japan, 42; 
in all heathen lands, 44. 

Cox, Melville, 103-4. 

Customs and morals, change of, 115-22. 


Index. 


265 


D. 

Denominations, work of the, 107, 192; what they are giving, 
189-91. 

Dennis, New Horoscope of Missions by, 30. 

Dharmapala, 51. 

E. 

Early Christianity, rapid progress of; entrance into Eu¬ 
rope, 1; spreads to various countries, 2. 

Eddy, George Sherwood, 39. 

Egypt, modern missions in, 32. 

Education, beginning of in Japan, 132-3. 

England, Church of, 39; comparison of with Japan, 159; 
why great, 212-14. 

English, required in Japanese schools, 136. 

Europe, first mission work in, 1, 180; compared with Ja¬ 
pan, 180. 

Excuses, 5-7. 

F. 

Falkland Islands, base of missionary operations, 25. 
Foochoo, 167-9. 

Fox, temple of, 57, 95. 

Fudo, temple of, 78-82. 

Fujimori, Otoshige, first impressions on, 142-4; his work, 
163, 165; conversion of, 223. 


G. 

Gardner, Allen, 24. 

Giving, the grace of, chapter on, 188-211; children should 
be taught it, 196-7; should be taught to the churches, 
202-4; a duty of all, 204-6; giving time, 206-10, 243-5; 
spirit of, 210-11. 

God, ancient conceptions of, 96-8; using every man, 101; 

robbing him, 219-20. 

Gods, number of in Japan, 47. 


266 


Index. 


Going, should be better acquainted with it, 260; opposition 
to it, 261; should do as much for Christ as the world, 
262. 

Gospel, fifty years of in Japan, chapter on, 101-31; edicts 
of government against, 105-6. 

Great Britain, missionaries of, 238. 

H. 

Harmony, how maintained, 230-2. 

Heathen, number of, 21; what makes a heathen, 67-72; 
how to reach him, 72; call of, 95-6; contrast with the 
“ Christian,” 172-4; why hard to convert, 180-2; one 
saves a “ Christian,” 229. 

Hero Worship, 137-8. 

Heroism, deeds of, 24-5, 102-4. 

Home, influence of Christianity on, 124-6; leaving for 
school, 136-7; student’s entrance into, 139-40. 


I. 

Idols, some described, 55-7; American idols, 65-6; effect of 
idol worship, 87; idol of Mikoshi, 92. 

Inactivity, eight centuries of, 4; causes of, 5-7. 

India, first missionaries to; population of, 37; American 
Baptists in, 38; South India, 39; results, 40. 

Ito, Prince, 111-12, 139. 

J. 

Japan, age of mission work in, 41; present results, 42; nat¬ 
ural religions of, 46; temples of, chapter on, 74-98; gos¬ 
pel in for fifty years, 101; beginnings in, 105; moral 
standard of, 110; emperor of, 111; government of, 119, 
140; struggle for the true faith, 127; open to the gos¬ 
pel, 130; politeness of the people, 140. 

Japanese, how some were reached, 224-5. 


Index. 


267 


Jews, required to give, 209-10. 

Jewett, 38-9. 

Jizo, god of, 87. 

Judson, Adoniram, 12; why immersed, 232. 

K. 

Klingman, C. C., 128. 

Kishimojin, temple of, 84-7. 

Kobo Daishi, S3, 135. 

Koishikawa, church in, 166-7. 

L. 

Lay preaching, prohibition of, 3, 13. 

Layman’s Missionary Movement, 14. 

Literature, influence of Christianity on in Japan, 122-4. 
Living Links, 13. 

Livingstone, David, 29. 

Lord’s plan, best proof of, 9. 

Los Angeles, Cal., church of, 215-19. 

M. 

Map, explanation of, 20-3. 

Methodist Church, South, what it is giving to missions, 
189-91, 239; missionaries supported, 190; churches sup¬ 
porting each a missionary, 190-2. 

Methodists, in Russia, 36; in India, 39; class leader in Ja¬ 
pan, 175. 

Mexico, population; nationalities; first missionary; present 
results, 26. 

Mikoshi, idol of, 92-4. 

Mission fields compared, 184-5. 

Mission schools, number of in Japan, 145; students in, 146; 
value of property, 165. 

Missionaries, independent, 14; home life of, 125; first two, 
1, 2, 160; why they should return home, 160-1; position 
of delicate, 194; reports of, 195; kind wanted, 235-6, 


268 


Index. 


251-4; number of in South America, 25; in Mexico, 26; 
in Africa, 30; in India, 40; in China, 41; in Japan, 42; 
in the world, 44; number of required to evangelize the 
world, 239. 

Missionary offering, where find it, 198-200. 

Missionary societies, two classes opposed to, 8, 9; first in 
England, 11; in America, 12. 

Missionary work, nature of, 72, 142-5, 179-84; results of, 
126-30; of the churches of Christ, chapter on, 160-87; 
joy of, 178; should be visited by home brethren, 178-9; 
at home, 245-51; abroad, 251-4. 

Missions, three stages of, 10, 12; first missionary society, 
11; present-day in all lands, chapter on, 20-45; reflex 
influence of, chapter on, 212-36; why opposed to, 222; 
unselfishness of, 233-5; problem of, 237-40. 

Moffat, Robert, 29. , 

Mohammedanism, its number; nature of; origin of, 21; in 
Africa, 28. 

Morals, no system of, 137; students’ lack of, 138-9; true 
basis of, 139; what missions have done for, 227. 

Moravians, work of in Africa, 29. 

Morrison, Robert, 40, 179. 

Motoda, Sakunoshin, testimony of to Christianity, 118-22. 

N. 

Nagasaki, port of, 109. 

New Testament, translation of, 106. 

Nineteenth century, awakening of, 10. 

Ni-O, 79. 

O. 

Okuma, Count, testimony to the Bible, 112, 114, 139. 

Old Testament, translation of, 107. 

Opium, prohibited in Japan, 105. 

Ozaki, B., 168-9. 


Index. 


269 


P. 

Paul, in Europe; first missionary journey, 1, 2. 

Personal mention, 192-6. 

Prayer, form of, 80-1; nature of, 81-2; Jesus on, 82. 
Preachers, number of at home, 184-5; should make reports, 
195; should preach on missions, 259. 

Presbyterians, 238-9. 

Progress of religion, how checked, 3; extent of by the 
tenth century, 4. 

Protestantism, sixteenth and twentieth centuries com¬ 
pared, 7-9. 

Q. 

Qualifications of a missionary, 251-4. 

R. 

Reed, Miss Mary, 102-3. 

Reflex Influence, chapter on, 212-36. 

Religion, freedom of, 119. 

Religions, heathen, Mohammedan, Catholic, Protestant, 
21-3. 

Results, 126-30. 

Riis, Jacob, 214. 

Russia, 35-7. 

S. 

Schools, and school life in Japan, chapter on, 132-59; 
course of study in, 134-6; students in, 136-40; build¬ 
ings of, 137; hero worship in, 137-8; charity schools, 
140-5; mission schools, 145-7. 

Scott, General, 26. 

Shibusawa, Baron, 114, 139. 

Shimosa, 164, 170-5; my last visit to, 174. 

Shintoism, 48. 

Snodgrass, E., 166. 

South America, results in, 25. 


270 


Index. 




Spain, in Spanish America, 23. 

Spanish America, extent; population; revolution in, 23; 
present results, 24-6. 

Students, peril of, 138; some of ours, 144-5, 148, 156, 158. 

Suicide, 120. 

Suitengu, temple of, 83-4. 

Sun, worship of, 67-9. 

Sunday schools, number of children in, 146; beginnings of 
at Zoshigaya, 153-6. 

Superstitions, Japanese, 57-9; American, 59-65. 

T. 

Temples, of Japan, chapter on, 74-100; number of, 74-5; 
how sustained, 76-7. 

Terra Del Fuego, 24. 

Tobacco, amount spent for, by the churches, 200; by the 
United States, 201; how to quit, 201. 

Tokyo, population of, 57; temples of, 75; places of Chris¬ 
tian worship, 75; Asakusa temple in, 88; number of stu¬ 
dents, 138; our schools in, 144-5, 147-59. 

Turkey, Christians in; late changes; Bibles sold, 33; pub¬ 
lic schools, 34. 

U. 

Uganda, mission work in, 30-1. 

Umewa-jinja and Ushjima-jinja, temples of, 90-5. 

W. 

Wagner, F. A., 143, 171, 224-5. 

Wakasa, conversion of, 109. 

Woman, how the Bible has helped, 115-16, 121; tribute to, 
175. 

Work, summary of, 164; trips to some of, 166-78; nature 
of, 179-83. 

Workers, number of in Japan, 162-3; two classes of, 245-54. 

Writing, Japanese method of, 134-6. 




Index. 


271 


Y. 

Yokohama, port of, 16; mission work in, 142; from, to San 
Francisco, 193. 

Yoshikawa, Iwo, 170-2. 

Z. 

Zaccheus, 194. 

Zoshigaya Gakuin, farewell meeting of, 128-9; its origin 
and history, 147-59; course of study in, 152; students 
accommodated, 164; land of, 165. 

















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